ABSTRACT
This chapter examines an intellectual-political force that directly affects the future of the United States and the world. The nature and extent of the influence of the new Jacobins is an issue of great moment. In preparation for later discussion of the neo-Jacobin view of international affairs and foreign policy, it is appropriate to extend the dichotomy between two sharply opposed forms of popular government to two very different ideas of nationhood. The Jacobins derived some pride and sense of superiority from their Frenchness, but the inner logic of Jacobin universalism is to shed specifically national characteristics and to become more abstractly ideological. The neoJacobin quest for empire is bound to inflame international relations and generate opposition around the world–no matter that this push for control is undertaken for the sake of "democracy" and "virtue".
