Good morning America! As the first anniversary of the Iraq war looms and US politics limbers up for a bruising presidential election, Prospect goes to the USA. This issue (a bumper 96 pages) is an America special, partly designed to raise our visibility over there. We now sell more than 25,000 copies worldwide but only about 1,000 of these in America; it's time the superpower paid more attention. Indeed, we cannot help the modest feeling that the world needs Prospect to flourish a little in America. There are not many current affairs magazines that can dig as deep as we do both eastward into continental Europe and westward into the US. And there are not many American publications that would find a home for political voices as various as, say, Robert Kagan, Michael Lind and Robert Reich. This issue offers three big pieces on the state of America. First is an angry account of its nationalism - the demon in America's cellar - by Anatol Lieven, which makes a convincing case that nationalism is the driving force behind the extraordinary post-9/11 switch from status quo power to dissatisfied radical power. Joshua Kurlantzick of the New Republic takes his imagination for a walk inside the post-9/11 foreign policy of the Gore administration we should have had. I won't ruin the suspense by telling you what happens in that parallel universe - suffice to say that the conceit does its work, which is to tease out how deep in the political class the changes in US foreign policy extend. Finally, some good news for liberals from Ruy Teixeira, who defends here the thesis of his controversial book, The Emerging Democratic Majority, which argues that long-term economic and demographic trends are working in favour of the Democrats.
We also make space for the news in our backyard, with three different sideways glances at the events surrounding the Iraq war, the Hutton inquiry and the BBC. Meanwhile, Tony Giddens and David Marquand disagree over what it all means for New Labour.
Finally, there has been a large response to my essay "Too Diverse?" (February), both in the general media and in comments sent to Prospect. There were so many of the latter that rather than fill up half the magazine or cut them to shreds we are putting them all on our website. Anyone who wants a paper copy of the comments, see details on page 21.
