ABSTRACT
At the core of the Anglo-American West, what some still imagine to be the cutting edge of modernity, lie unfinished cultural conflicts and persistent practices of political accommodation. Contests over collective identities, over the extent of commitments to the autonomy of the individual, and over the standing of distinct cultures within single polities – all are hardwired into the most basic social and political processes of a still promising and still potentially global project. Larger systemic implications may be drawn from the essentially pluralist practices, including open-ended negotiation, through which unique cultures defined, defended, and integrated themselves within Anglo-America. One promising way to draw out those implications is to look comparatively at the evolution of such practices within key bilateral relationships constitutive of something that may rightly be remembered as Anglo-American civilization.
