dents must have felt when they attacked communism (“Thenrnyou favor unjust capitalism!?” screeched their inquisitors), criticizedrnthe war in Afghanistan (“Support the troops!”), and demandedrnthat the Soviet authorities reopen the closed churchesrnof their historically Orthodox Chrisdan country (“Separadon ofrnchurch and state is the bedrock of our consdtution!”). No realrnpatriot ever intends to aid and comfort his homeland’s enemiesrnin either peace or war. But no patriot can stand idly by while hisrncountry, her body violated and possessed by the modernist demonrn(in either its communist or consumerist guise), is madernvile and aggressive, as disfigured and offensive to the patriotrnhimself as to the world she now threatens.rnFor those who can see clearly what we have become and canrnbear to gaze at an America whose image the world over isrnshaped by CNN’s video clips of the victims of depraved adolescentrnmurderers, their hapless and deracinated parents, and thernNew World Order’s destruction of Yugoslavia (while soullessrnbureaucrats chirp their “regrets” over “collateral damage”), thernrevulsion felt and the desire to explain to any foreigner—or fellowrnAmerican, for that matter—who will listen that this is notrnAmerica but a nameless something else is almost overwhelming.rnAt the end of the American Century, the America wernlove—and so manv long for in silence, as “nostalgia” is deemedrn”reacdonar)'” and “sendmental” —is preserved only in dny islandsrnof sanit)’: a small town where the people still answer therncall of church bells (there are a few); the rapidly filling plains,rndeserts, and mountains of the West, our mythic American landscape;rnregional accents that somehow persist; and in the islandrnof the patriotic imagination. America, like occupied Russia beforernher, sdll lives because a memory of her persists.rnAt the end of the American Century, the price of global empirernhas become evident. We are losing our country: Somerneven advise emigration. To where? The Russian patriot SergeirnBulgakov once wrote that only “suffering love gives one thernright to chasdse one’s own nadon.” American dissidents shouldrnremember the example of those Russian exiles who, likernSolzhenitsvn, suffered in their loving chasdsement of a pervertedrnRussia and have now returned to share her fate. No real lifernin a foreign land is possible for us, even if the America we havernexists onlv in the soil we stand on and in the piercingly painfulrnmemories we possess. As long as we have them, there is hope.rn(Ms3(SKsrnNew People, New Centuryrnby John LukacsrnDuring the 19th century, the United States fought fivernwars, of which it won three, the Indian, the Mexican, andrnthe Spanish-American ones; the War of 1812 was a draw; andrnthen there was the Civil War, the bloodiest war of mankind untilrnthat time and the one that proved the grand failure of thernAmerican Consdtution, even though that had not yet beenrnoverweighted by unnecessary amendments. During the 20thrncentury, the United States fought six wars, of which it won threern(the two world wars and the so-called Gulf War), drew one inrnKorea, and lost one in Vietnam. (The present war in Serbia isrnnot yet over.)rnOne essential difference between the American wars in therntwo centuries ought to be noted. In the 19th century, the UnitedrnStates won all of its wars alone. In the 20tii century, it didrnnot. In both of the world wars, it was dependent on great allies,rnincluding Russia. (However, in the Pacific, the United Statesrnwon its 1941-45 war against Japan practically alone.) On thernother hand, the Viehiam War, which the United States foughtrnalone (except, of course, for its South Vietnamese allies), it lost.rnOne of the odd and perhaps (but only perhaps) promisingrnthings in the historv- of the United States is this countr”s enormousrnvitalitv’. Its recover’ after the Civil War—ves, even in thernSouth—was phenomenal. The reco’er of the presdge of thernUnited States after the lost war in Vietnam was also remarkable.rnA decade or so after that sorry defeat, the Lhiited States becamernthe only superpower of the world, the Russians having given uprnon the Cold War (which, however, was not a real war at all).rnThese recoveries have had something to do with the enormousrnJohn Lukacs is the author, most recently, of A Thread of Yearsrn(Yale Uni-ersit)’ Press).rnsize of the American population. Neither the Civil War (exceptrnfor pordons of the South) nor the Vietnam War involved morernthan a relatively small segment of the populadon able (or willing)rnto bear arms. But then, in both eases, the very compositionrnof the population was also changing—due to mass immigration.rnI am coming to this change of the composition of the Americanrnpeople, but meanwhile there is another comparison. Duringrnthe 19th centuP)-, we have the first examples of American inventiveness.rnTlie steamboat, the telegrapli, the telephone, farmrnmachinen’, and electric power were all invented bv Americans.rnDuring the 20th century, the Americanization of the world hasrnbeen implemented by the automobile, the airplane, movies, radio,rntelevision, .space rocketry, atomic power, and computers, ofrnwhich only one, the first airplane, was made by an American;rnthe rest were invented by Europeans, then perfected and massproducedrnby people in the United States. However, for the peoplesrnof the world, these facts were, and are, irrelevant. The 20thrncentury has been marked by the Americanization of the world.rnThis was not so in the 19th century. The emulation and adaptadonrnof insdtutions and things American were not widespreadrnthen. The advance of democracy—or, rather, of parliamentary’rngoernment—across Europe and even elsewhere was markedrnby the adaptation of Bridsh or Western European insdtudons,rnnot of American ones. In the 20th century, the opposite hasrnbeen true. The conscious, or half-conscious, emulation ofrnthings American—even by hundreds of millions of split-mindedrnpeoples who, on one side of their brains (and mouths) professrnto hate America—has been worldwide.rnIt is unreasonable to attribute all of this to American materialrnpower. The industrial age in America has been remarkablyrnAUGUST 1999/15rnrnrn