Today we welcome a guest post from Michael H. Hunt, author of The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained and Wielded Global Dominance, a new paperback edition of which has just been published. In the book, Hunt gives a long historical view of what factors enabled the United States to evolve from colonial outpost to global preeminence and explores the tenuousness of that power as we enter the twenty-first century. Here, he considers Barack Obama's first hundred days as president and pinpoints similarities and distinct shifts in personalities and policies that will affect America's...