Johnson's presentation of the history of the American nation is all the more dramatic because the English historian tries to capture the struggle for the character and meaning of American culture. Unlike today's revisionists who claim that the United States is just a conglomeration of racial and national groups with no shared culture, or those who claim that Americans are only a political nation, the author is convinced of the specific meaning of religious and cultural Anglo-American features that have evolved from the arrival of the first settlers to the present day.
Johnson's book caused a world sensation not only because it disregards political correctness and fights various left-liberal myths, but also because of the author's uncompromising sense of the facts and extraordinarily dramatic diction. The reviewers generally agree that no American could have written it so openly and straightforwardly.