When not publicly attacking the Bush Administration, European statesmen tend, at least on the quiet, to deprecate their American counterparts as the rude products of a "cowboy" culture.
It may be that the best one-volume history of the United States has been penned by a Brit. David Reynolds takes us into the very essence of what it means to be an American, offering wisdom perhaps only possible from an outsider.
Eliot Cohen's look at the greatest democratic statesman of recent centuries affirms Clemenceau's quip that war is too important to be left to the generals--even American generals.
