American Literature
it will only nourish their great ideas, the eternal principles."Clearly, Mark Twain was not alone in thinking that the Americans had betrayed their
founding values for what he labeled a "backseat" in the community of imperialist nations. That narrative still drives Americans' understanding of
national identity. We still believe we are a nation of white Protestants, despite massive evidence to the contrary, and our politicians have to avow
their Christianity to be creditable. Our leaders invoke divine guidance when they dispatch troops, and we quarrel endlessly over the contents of
American history texts. Moreover the rest of the world continues to fling our values back at us: in 2006 Iranian President Mahmound Ahmadinejad
asked President Bush how it was possible to bomb Afghanistan and still profess "to be a follower of Jesus Christ...feel obliged to respect human
rights, [and] present liberalism as a civilization model
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