How can America be so powerful and yet so innocent? So ignorant of foreign lands, peoples and languages yet so certain it knows whats best for everyone? How can its individual citizens be so open, friendly and generous but its foreign policy so arrogant and domineering? And why is it shocked when the objects of its policies grumble, protest or even strike back in anger? How can a nation so clever at business and selling its products overseas be so oblivious to how outsiders regard it? The answers to these and many other questions will explain why America leaves so many observers at home and abroad both admiring and uneasy, envious and appalled, enchanted but bewildered; and what are the choices and challenges facing us in a world that becomes more Americanized every day. About the AuthorMark Hertsgaard is an American journalist, author and broadcaster. He is the author of Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future, A Day in the Life: The Music and Artistry of the Beatles and On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Harpers, The New York Times, and many other publications, and he is a regular contributor to National Public Radio. He lives in San Francisco.