It also illuminates the inequalities which are entrenched in the US. The film showed Ashley, a bright, ambitious African American girl who lived with her working-class, lone mother. One American Hindu family hired three special linguistic tutors, had temples in India praying for their son and promised to provide lunch for 5,000 starving people if their prince succeeded. The Gods did not intervene in the free market struggle.This competition is indisputably a paean to ruthless, hateful, capitalism and competition.

Richer kids get obsessive parental coaching and other unusual leg-ups. I went on Saturday with my husband and 10-year-old daughter and she was rapt from the first minute, after endless grumbles and bouts of piteous pleading when I told her we were off to have a fun evening at a film about spelling tests. Immaculately constructed, Spellbound follows the lives of eight 14-year-olds from diverse backgrounds as they go through the rounds of the quirky, all-consuming United States National Spelling Bee contest, which began in 1925.Ten million hopefuls start off, moving from town to county heats until the final, which is held in Washington with the 200-plus candidates You get one chance; one wrong letter and you are out. Kids from deprived backgrounds do it for themselves, with unconditional emotional support from their families but little else. If you haven't seen it already, go now, catch Spellbound, an arresting cinema documentary, if only to remind yourself just what makes the US such an irresistible destination for millions around the world. Until there is some sign of that, Mr Bush's grand vision is unlikely to last any longer than Wilson's: who would wager on its supporters winning the day once they come up against the hard realities of US interests, at least as they are currently defined? Visions of international harmony sound a little premature right now.Mark Mazower is professor of history at Birkbeck College London.

Is Washington too naive to realise this, or too ideologically driven by neo-conservative theories of how it won the Cold War?Preaching democracy is no substitute for a sustained effort to bring about a just settlement over Palestine. Anti-Communism served the interests of nasty police states around the world for many decades, despite the US's public commitments to defending the "Free World". What is to stop the fight against al-Qa'ida working the same way in years to come, allowing Washington to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses or to clampdowns on popular but anti-American parties?The truth is that, as long as US foreign policy is unwilling to push Israeli governments towards a proper peace deal, future Arab democracies are likely to be at least as anti-American as the existing despotisms. In fact, the outcome is likely to resemble Greece rather than Lithuania.What makes Arab opinion anti-American is not some sweeping rejection of modernity, or the American way of life, but simply opposition to American foreign policy. Greece is a case of a country today that combines a healthy democracy with high levels of suspicion towards American policy, precisely because the public associates the US with support for the dictatorship.This administration appears to believe that bringing liberty to the Arab world will expand intellectual horizons and drain the swamp of religious extremism, thereby creating a popular mood much more favourable to the US.