The United States of America in its present form is that of sole world superpower in terms of military might, economic strength and arguably its contribution to culture. In its form as superpower America as a country has conducted actions which suggests it has a globalising mission, one which will unite the world under the auspices and control of the United States of America, or at the very least under the umbrella term of “democracy”. David Held tells us that globalisation is a new paradigm which was conceptualised in the 1960s and 1970s (Held 2000). He writes that globalisation was used as a way of describing the period following modernism and post-modernism; a period which started following the collapse of the European meta-narrative of progress following World War II and the atrocities carried out in the Holocaust.

Globalisation can be said therefore, to be about the rise of America to a position of global dominance over the course of the twentieth century in not only its own opinion but in the opinion of an increasingly interdependent global economy and society. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and consequently the fall of Communism, Francis Fukuyama wrote that we had reached “The End of History” (Fukuyama 1989), a rather over dramatic way of claiming that there was now no alternative to the American way of life. Americanisation is therefore ascribed to the joint influences of democracy, free market capitalism and consumerism. For much of the Western World the importation of American culture is one that has been embraced in contemporary society and America’s “War on Terrorism” is a way of “encouraging” other unwilling countries to take on these ideals.

Encouragement is of course a loosely used term given that military force is used to export Americanisation to those countries unwilling to accept the American way of life in a similar vein to the imperialistic tendencies of Europe in the preceding centuries. In light of such exportation methods, globalisation can be described as nothing but an expansion of the American power base, as military and cultural imperialism. Ergo, globalisation itself becomes Americanisation.

The question that arises therefore is that following the decline of the European Empires and the failings of modern enlightenment to create a better world how and why America has allowed itself to conduct what amounts to imperialistic action. The answer can be found in America’s history, in its religious beliefs, in its economical structure and the unique blending of the two which have left the American population with certain traits which condone the actions and policies of contemporary America.

This thesis will outline the historical events, the religious traits and the economical conditions which have led American society to evolve in such a way that American foreign policy is not only based on hard nosed political realism as argued by many in contemporary sociology, but rather by ideological concerns that have been deeply rooted in American society over the course of its unique history while addressing such concerns as whether America is involving itself in imperial ambitions.