Why had this subtle but dangerous reversal occurred so rapidly and so unexpectedly (to some)? Indeed, what were “democracies” doing engaging in such practices at all? In fact, all along the promise of postwar liberty itself was illusory, constructed on the premise that most of the world would be rebuilt along the lines of American-style democracy and freedoms. Our argument is that without the four pillars of American exceptionalism, such developments were not only likely, they were inevitable. Moreover, we argue that Europeans’ use of terms such as “democracy,” “republic,” and even “liberty” were not the same as those understood by Americans, and therefore other nations never entertained any intention of adopting the American pillars. In our previous volume of A Patriot’s History of the Modern World: From America’s Exceptional Ascent to the Atomic Bomb, we reviewed the impact of common law, a Christian (mostly Protestant) religious culture, access to private property (including ownership with easy acquisition of deeds and titles), and free-market capitalism, which brought America to the forefront of world power by the end of the war.
