There was a time in mid-20th Century that American historians and critics set American culture in the context of the rest of the world. “In the global contest with Soviet films and ballet companies, America’s most eminent historians and literary critics found themselves writing about the United States from a transnational perspective. They also served as guest lecturers and visiting professors overseas, confronting audiences and points of view different from the ones they were used to at home, even as they tried to spread the word about the virtues of America’s culture and civilization.” But “starting in the 1970s, it was no longer fashionable in academic circles to write about ‘America’ as a community of shared beliefs and values.” And over the next few decades, that sense of transnational perspective was replaced with more provincial perspectives.