This compelling book argues that American patriotism is a civil religion of blood sacrifice, which periodically kills its children to keep the group together. T

Will Smith in I Am Legend. Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic. Charlton Heston in just about everything. Viewers of Hollywood action films are no doubt familiar with

When Gore Vidal's recent New York Times bestseller Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace was published, the Los Angeles Times described Vidal as the last defender o

The first martyr to the cause of American liberty was Major General Joseph Warren, a well-known political orator, physician, and president of the Provincial Con

Until the end of the Cold War, the politics of national identity was confined to isolated incidents of ethnics strife and civil war in distant countries. Now, w