Americans and Everyone Else: Origins and Meaning of U.S. Foreign Policy

In this book, the author examines three interrelated issues: how Americans have imagined themselves throughout the history of their country, how other nations have imagined America, and how this imagination has influenced U.S. foreign policy and the place they occupy in the world.
Americans' self-perceptions include not only a set of essential traits characteristic of “real Americans,” but also a clear definition of those who do not belong to their common “we,” as well as a selection of Others – peoples whose traits are described as opposite to their own, allowing for constant comparison. The book shows the changing composition of this “we,” as well as the shift in significant Others with whom Americans have related themselves over several centuries.