What is the origin of the idea of America, how has it been shaped by history, and where is it headed? In this book on the idea of America, based upon the Engelsberg Seminar that took place in 2009, the objective is to try to gain a clearer understanding of the original ideas and sources for what is known as the American idea, examine how this idea is nurtured in the US and received elsewhere in the world, and consider the question of whether we are now approaching a ‘post-American world’. Who, in that case, will take over the US’s role as global leader – China or India; what kind of world would we then live in, and what ideals would we thus be guided by in the future?

Contributors: Pauline Maier, Daniel Walker Howe, David Reynolds, Philippe Roger, Kathleen Burk, Reinhold Wagnleitner, David Ellwood, Anatol Lieven, Godfrey Hodgson, James Carroll, Deepak Lal, Jong-Yil Ra, Peter Baldwin, Robert J Shapiro, Oliver Kamm, Edward Luce, Alan Wolfe, Göran Rosenberg, Anders Stephanson, Douglas Murray, Peter Beinart.