The United States and Its Foreign Policy: Searching for the Lost Federalism

Abstract

There’s a feature in the USA cultural life which has always amazed me, particularly in the way Americans perceive themselves and their own history: they are considerably proud of the first chapter of their adventure – the independence war against Great Britain –, while they pay a far weaker enthusiasm to the second – the Philadelphia Convention and the birth of the first federation in history, in 1787. Having conquered their independence by defeating the strongest army of that time with a scratch militia is one of the decisive elements which have contributed to found their common identity, and it’s definitely not hard to understand the reason. Far paler is the representation that Americans have about themselves as the inventors of federalism. And that is what sounds weird.