"Following a traumatic experience as a child in Japan during World War II, Fumio Matsuo has devoted his life as a journalist to understanding America. Now, drawing on over forty years covering the United States, he traces America's position today as the world's sole superpower." "With a deep interest in the personal histories behind historical events, Matsuo reveals America's underlying "DNA of the use of force" in a detailed analysis of the Second Amendment and in portraits of influential Americans, from the Founding Fathers to James Monroe, from General Curtis LeMay to Ronald Reagan, Condoleezza Rice, and George W. Bush, and from the "Best and the Brightest" to the neocons, many of whom Matsuo knew personally during his days in Washington. Early colonial wars, the establishment of local militias, the Civil War, the use of atomic bombs on Japan, the modern struggles for minority rights, and America's calamitous forays into Vietnam and the Middle East - all suggest a nation convinced of its own rightness and righteousness, and willing to act unilaterally to secure, and impose, its lofty goals of peace and freedom." "Democracy with a Gun is a timely and important work, made all the more powerful because it doesn't take sides. Gracefully bridging the gap between memoir and politics, it offers the insights of a keen America watcher, and a perspective from abroad that is rarely provided by the usual media pundits."--Jacket.