Michael Kimmage reviews Andrew Preston's Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy:
Seeking to explain why "U.S. foreign policy has often acquired the tenor of a moral crusade," Preston first turns his attention to the seventeenth century. Avidly Protestant, "the American colonies never underwent a counterreformation," he observes, and they waged almost continuous war against enemies deemed theologically other—i.e. Catholics and Native Americans. These Christian soldiers prided themselves on fighting holy wars, regularly fitting themselves into Old Testament patterns, the New World’s Israelites imbued with "a consistent belief in America as a chosen nation and in Americans as a chosen people."
The Dish 