“He's Got the Whole World in His Hands”: US History and Its Discontents in the Obama Era

Abstract

As Samuel Eliot Morrison had done when he delivered the first Harmsworth lecture eighty-seven years ago, I, too, must begin with a Prologue. “Through the Prologue,” Professor Morrison told his audience, “the author endeavoured to establish a personal relation between himself and his audience, and to arouse their curiosity and interest in the play that followed.”1 I pray he is correct.