America -- A New Rome?

"Are we Rome? In important ways we just might be. In important ways we're clearly making some of the same mistakes. But the antidote is everywhere. The antidote is being American."  [Cullen Murphy, Are we Rome? (2007), p. 206]

Comment to the above passage, which he cites, by University of Manitoba Professor Vaclav Smil, in his Why America Is Not a New Rome (2012), p. 24:

I find this faith breathtaking; Americans making all those mistakes that can be avoided by being American.

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