Which is to say that every nation is at least partly responsible for the making of its ‘popular’ identity; and the consciousness of Americans, with regard to other cultures, is likely not much worse than that of the people of any other nation, even if it is true that Americans, because of the prominence of their position in the global exchange of ideas and trends (and, possibly, because of something in their cultural ‘personality’), are the more conspicuous purveyors of a geopolitical tunnel vision.