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Another Look at the Downfall of “Fortress America”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

John A. Thompson
John A. Thompson
Affiliation:
Lecturer in History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St. Catharine's College, Cambridge CB2 1RL, England
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Extract

In the reams of commentary that marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, no theme was more common than that it ended American isolationism. According to Time magazine, “this was the moment that changed Americans from a nation of provincial innocents, not only ignorant of the great world but proud of their ignorance, into a nation that would often have to bear the burdens of rescuing the world.” “The United States was shaken to the bottom of its soul, its geopolitical innocence in ruins,” Newsweek recalled. “No longer could it cultivate the old American illusion of withdrawing safely behind the Atlantic and Pacific while the rest of a corrupt world went about its dirty business.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , December 1992 , pp. 393 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

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