The new American exceptionalism

Introduction: the United States of fantasy

Staging the new world order: Hiroshima, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the Persian Gulf War

America of the two covenants: the Waco siege and the Oklahoma City bombing

A national rite of passage: the return of Alexis de Tocqueville

Patriot acts: the Southernification of America

From virgin land to Ground Zero: mythological foundations of the homeland security state

Antigone's kin: from Abu Ghraib to Barack Obama.