Serving God and Mammon

People have written books about America long before the United States declared itself, and we may be forgiven for asking if we really need another. Doesn’t America already loom large enough in our world; hasn’t it all been said before? Well, yes and no. There’s a sense in which we’re all Americans now because that country is ourselves writ large or — as America might see it — set free. And although much of what is said here may have been said before, it’s rarely been said as concisely and well. Nor have the paradoxes that divide, and unite, that great country been so carefully and sympathetically delineated.

Tristram Riley-Smith takes his title from the famous Liberty Bell, allegedly rung when the Declaration of Independence was read out. It cracked in 1846 and the crack is now as renowned as the bell itself. They even put it on US postage stamps.