The Quarterly Report

MICHAEL A. SCULLY

‘THE American character,” writes Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in the Fall issue of Foreign Affairs, “is indeed filled with contradiction and paradox. So, in consequence, is American foreign policy.” All nations, of course, have peculiar characteristics that result from their respective histories and affect their perceptions of and dealings with the world. In the case of the United States, says Mr. Schlesinger, “No paradox is more persistent than the historic tension in the American soul between an addiction to experiment and a susceptibility to ideology.”

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MICHAEL A. SCULLY

‘THE American character,” writes Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in the Fall issue of Foreign Affairs, “is indeed filled with contradiction and paradox. So, in consequence, is American foreign policy.” All nations, of course, have peculiar characteristics that result from their respective histories and affect their perceptions of and dealings with the world. In the case of the United States, says Mr. Schlesinger, “No paradox is more persistent than the historic tension in the American soul between an addiction to experiment and a susceptibility to ideology.”