"In Superpower Syndrome, psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton describes two competing apocalyptic visions - Islamist and American - each aiming at massive destruction in the service of global purification and revewal. While the Islamist forces are overtly visionary in their willingness to kill and die for their religion. American forces claim restraint and reason while offering a no less visionary program for using their overwhelming military power to remake the world." "Both sides are energized by versions of intense idealism: both see themselves combating evil in order to redeem and renew the world: both are ready to unleash untold levels of violence to achieve that: each sees itself in a face-off with the other and, Lifton tells us, both have partnered up, however unwittingly, in a cycle of violence to which no end is in sight."--Jacket.