So said British historian Robert Payne of the United States of America in 1949. Now, over 60 years later, I wonder if this was written at the peak of our national power and that we’ve been declining ever since. What do you amateur historians think? What other societies or nations might be in competition for the greatest power of all time?

She bestrides the world like a Colossus, no other power at any time in the world’s history has possessed so varied or so great an influence on other nations…. It is already an axiom that the decisions of the American government affect the lives and livelihood of the remotest people. Half the wealth of the world, more than half of the productivity, nearly two-thirds of the world’s machines are concentrated in American hands….

In 1949 we were a nation of 147 million people, an increase of 15 million since the census of 1940. The country was prosperous and powerful. Industrial production outstripped any previous time in the nation’s past, and all other nations of the world. The bumper harvest of the previous fall had been the biggest on record. We were ridin’ high.

As you may have guessed, I still am under the power of David McCullough’s Truman. It may be that the author’s historical judgment has been warped by the existence of the massive manuscript collection at the Harry S. Truman library in Independence, Missouri. Truman has 58 pages of Source Notes and a 25 page Bibliography. The HST library sounds like a researcher’s paradise.

Dave, wannabe author