ABSTRACT
As other chapters in this volume demonstrate, the rigorous study of American diplomatic history is essential to reveal the patterns of behavior that shaped the nation’s origins and subsequent development. The recurring pattern in North America of morally sanctified political violence, a central theme of Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton’s The Dominion of War (2005), both precedes the founding of the United States and transcends its physical boundaries. Such continuity is particularly striking at a time that the nation is engaged in an open-ended “war on terrorism” that is routinely framed by government officials around universal moral themes. History, we learn again, does repeat itself.
