The eagle's shadow

by Mark Hertsgaard

"Americans rarely used to think about the outside world. As the mightiest nation in history, the United States could do as it pleased. Now Americans have learned the hard way that what foreigners think matters. When terror struck on September 11, 2001, author Mark Hertsgaard was completing a trip around the world, gathering perceptions about America from people in fifteen countries. Whether sophisticated business leaders, starry-eyed teenagers, or Islamic fundamentalists, his subjects felt both admiring of and uneasy about the United States, enchanted yet bewildered, appalled yet envious.". "This complex catalogue of impressions - good, bad, but never indifferent - is the departure point for a short, pointed essay in the tradition of Common Sense and Culture of Complaint. How can the world's most open society be so proud of its founding ideals yet so inconsistent in applying them? So loved for its pop culture but so resented for its high-handedness? Exploring such paradoxes, Hertsgaard