The national conventions of the U.S. Democratic and Republican parties are now but fast-fading memories. The only thing that I really wanted to know once they were over was: Who has the balloon concession for these events, because there's obviously a lot of easy money to be made from hot air.
More to the point, would any observer of those conventions living in Kabul or Beijing or Nairobi or St. Petersburg say, "Wow, that's democracy at work. That's the kind of political system we want!?" Yet Americans seem to believe, down to the last moose-skinner, that the world is dying to adopt their idiosyncratic and flawed form of government.
To Americans and non-Americans alike, I recommend "Just How Stupid Are We?" (Don't answer that.) This is a fascinating study of the American political mind by historian Rick Shenkman, founder of Virginia-based George Mason University's popular Web site, History News Network.