Chapter Seven digs deeper into Roger’s commentary to uncover his attempts to explain the essence of American values. He consistently probed what it meant to be an Americanand did so with wit and insight. Roger stressed several qualities that he believed defined his society: a veneration of ordinay people and a concern for their well-being, a suspicion of social and economic elitism, a respect for the work ethic,and a belief in social egalitarianism and economic opportunity. Rogers’ populist mind-set caused him to locate "the American soul" in common people. He saw the best of American tradition in William Jennings Bryan, the best of modern innovation in aviator Charles Lindbergh, and the ideal combination in industrialist Henry Ford. Ironically, after years of imbibing his humorous reflections, many people concluded that the nature and meaning of America appeared when Rogers looked in the mirror. He became the keeper of the American soul.

Chapter 1 examines the popular and official fascination with Amerikanizm in the Soviet Union. The term connotated not only a desire to acquire American technology, but to learn to emulate uniquely American know-how, efficiency, practicality, ingenuity, and energy. Overwhelmingly, the Soviet people who visited the United States in the 1930s came to study American technology. To take advantage of the tantalizing business opportunities offered by this Soviet interest, the US government and businesses put few restrictions on visiting engineers. Although Ilf and Petrov were writers – “engineers of human souls” rather than engineers – they too focused on the promises of American “technique” (tekhnika), positing that in Soviet hands the capitalists’ tools would serve the workers’ interests.

The two decades from 1969 marked the tightening of Israel–US strategic ties. With the Cold War becoming more and more predominant in the America view of the Arab–Israeli conflict, American presidents, from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan, justified the tightening strategic relations between the two nations in the role Israel would ostensibly play in the defence of the Middle East against Soviet expansion. It did not really matter that Israel would not play that role; for Israel, the idealism that was prevalent in the relations between the two nations was not solid enough, and Israeli leaders gladly recited the Cold War rhetoric in their communication with American officials. Visually, the Arab–Israel conflict played a significant role in the conduct of the relations between the two countries, from the attempts to deal with the consequences of the 1967 June War to the 1982 Lebanon War. These, though, were only a minor irritation in what became deeper and closer ties, encompassing economic and industrial ties, the deepening of cultural connections and intensification of strategic cooperation, mainly in intelligence sharing and development of technologies.

This chapter explores the transformation of the world of the American worker wrought by the Great War.Before the war, American industry demanded an endless supply of cheap labor. This imperative structured all aspects of working-class life——labor conditions and pay, home and neighborhood, politics and labor organization, and even its heterogenous racial and national composition. It had brought into being a working class at once within and apart from mainstream America. The economic and political forces unleashed by the Great War made America’s workers both the objects and agents of immense change. With the drastic curtailment of immigration caused by wartime conditions, workers could no longer be viewed as replaceable cogs, mere labor inputs in the production process. Neither could the insularity of their communities be tolerated, for during war, government and industry demanded loyalty, even active allegiance. Yet workers seized on the possibilities presented by the war in a bid to chart their own course. Emerging from this maelstrom was a dramatically different relationship between workers, on one hand, and business and government, on the other, ending the epoch of mass immigration and putting in place the beginnings of a labor system that valued long-term employment and worker loyalty.