The mobilisation which Bush has been able to perform since 11 September 2001 has to be fought - at least by Americans - in the name of a wise, honourable and democratic patriotism.

I am concerned about how to reverse the process by which a fundamentalist right and a corporate elite were able to seize power in the United States.

Mills insisted that a sociologist's proper subject was the intersection of biography and history.

Today's global justice movement may be the biggest, most diverse and energetic in history.

Who of us does not recognize that the life we live, however larded with brave talk about values and thought and ideals, is not actually a life dedicated to immersion in the endless torrent of images, songs, sounds and stories?

American movies and music deliver themes of freedom, innocence, and power that appeal to others - partly because America itself was put together out of a multiplicity of national traditions.

Some versions of patriotism come close to the tribal, which we all want to surpass, and some don’t.