Ever since Henry Luce, the publisher of Tims and Life, proclaimed in 1941 that the twentieth century is the "American Century," we have been trying to understand our role in it. In a bold reinterpretation of our country's rise to world power, Olivier Zunz shows how Americans appropriated the twentieth century; America's ascent was not the result of Europe's self-destruction. By the Second World War, Zunz argues, American policymakers, corporate managers,...