Whether or not we can look forward to a humble America, William Clebsch has done a splendid job of subduing the American mythique. And has subdued it, appropriately, by dividing it into four parts, a strategy that not only improves upon Caesar but evokes the prophet Daniel. It's the right blend for the occasion: secular and spiritual progress entwined, empire wedded to apocalypse. Except, of course, that we end up in the realm of irony and common sense, a most un-American millennium. And isn't an un-American millennium, like a humble America, a contradiction in terms?