Hasn’t the United States stood against the future consistently since the 1945 victories and its pursuit of global hegemony? Think of all the coups and assassinations with which the United States greeted this period. In this, a single event, we read the United States’ response to the future as it was arriving after 1945. A new era had begun, and the United States stood utterly opposed to it. It is of a piece with what the United States has been since its post–1945 emergence as a global power.