What is America's national identity? This study offers a new perspective into this question. It argues that this identity is 'constructed' rather than 'essential' and reflects the politics of exclusion. This identificatory exclusion has been globalized through American economic, cultural, political and military expansion. The study provocatively draws upon poetry, literature, art, architecture, gangsta rap, landscape and cityscape to illuminate the construction of America's national identity and illustrates how this has been globalized in an increasingly post-modernist condition.

NEIL RENWICK is Co-Director of the Centre for Asia-Pacific Studies and Reader in International Relations at The Nottingham Trent University. A graduate of the (former) Trent Polytechnic, University of Durham and Australian National University, he has also taught at the University of Adelaide and the Northern Territory University in Australia. In addition to many articles and published papers, he has also spent time as a current affairs radio broadcaster in Australia. He is the author of several books on international political economy and multinational corporations, a book on Japan's Alliance Politics and Defence Production and his most recent book publication (co-edited with Jill Krause) is Identities in International Relations. His present research includes a book-length study entitled Northeast Asian Critical Security.