ABSTRACT
Obama’s link between America’s achievements at home and its role abroad emphasises a significant theme in American culture, and an important aspect of the way in which American identity is constructed. The complex interaction of internal forces is important in helping to understand the changing nature of American cultural values but these forces also need to be related to the ways in which the country seeks to define itself in relation to the outside world. In this respect, ‘the conduct of foreign policy plays a central role in the construction of nationalism . . . (as) one of the ways in which nations speak for themselves; it defines not only the boundaries of the nation but also its character, interests, its allies and its enemies’ (McAlister 2001: 5-6). In this chapter we want to explore some of the implications of this judgement for an understanding of American’s position in the world in the early twenty-first century, and how it connects with persistent themes in American history and culture.
