Ernest R. May

INTRODUCTIONAmerica's sustained and extensive involvement in world affairssince World War II, which has included two wars and several smaller mili-tary interventions, as well as a great expansion of its economic and politicalinfluence, has had a paradoxical effect on the nation's thinking about...

History is made up of facts, but also of opinions; it is not only, asLeopold von Ranke put it, "what actually happened/' but also what peoplewho know what happened think about past events. Facts are often difficultto track down and verify, but once located they are immutable and per-manently...