These are two contrasting books on the global reach of America in the past century, different in style, tone, scope and, signally, in appraisal. Walker's offering is wry, gentle, a Te Deum for the American mix of brilliance and god-awfulness at the millennium's end. Johnson's academic argument is impassioned, caustic, two fingers rather than a panegyric for what the US has accomplished. Where Walker memorialises the makers of American history, Johnson sifts forensically through the mess they left.
Chalmers Johnson is a noted authority on the political economy of Japan and China, from where he draws evidence to back his warning that "bluster, military force and financial manipulation" must be replaced with policies based on respect for international institutions and sensitivity to the cultural context in which America's global competitors seek to embody capitalism. He is not the first to serve notice of the danger of American hubris and "imperial overstretch", but he indulges in some overstretch of his own with his claim that the collapse of communism portends a parallel downfall for the US. This ignores the immense store of wealth, innovation and decency which is a vital source of stability of the American empire.
The country may be bombastic in its foreign relations and Madeleine Albright may be a tasteless braggart in charge of them, but there is another America which keeps her on a short leash and to which Martin Walker offers the better guide. Walker's book is organised in 26 character sketches of his own personal pantheon, from Henry Ford to John Steinbeck, Babe Ruth to Bill Clinton, with analysis in each case of the America that made them and of the footprint they left on its history. Since his first visit in 1964, he writes, "each decade of my life has been marked and enhanced by the wondrous contradictions of the American experience". Walker is shameless in his perception of the good, the noble, the inventive, the humorous in his wondrous America, over the moralistic, greedy, manipulative side which Johnson perceives in its management of global affairs.
"There is no land on earth more enthralling, more welcoming, or more generous than America", he writes - quite a claim for a former Guardian columnist. His journalistic talents make for a book which is wholly readable, a pleasure to browse. On Billy Graham he captures the mix of the talented and tacky with obvious affection. Graham's genius for deploying show business to the service of the gospel included a trained horse which would kneel before the cross and paw the ground three times when asked the meaning of the Trinity. Hardly both at the same time, one imagines, but there is no fathoming the ways of God.
It is sobering to be reminded of the context of the 1950s in which Betty Friedan made her discovery of the awful reality of women's lives hidden behind the mystique of femininity. When she wrote her pioneering book the average American woman was married by the age of 20, contributing to a birth rate higher than that which India would reach in the 1980s.
Only on Bill Clinton does Walker's piety lose touch with reality. The President is an old Oxford buddy, he tells us. But even Clinton will scarcely believe the claim that his romps with Gennifer and his cigar tricks with Monica will be forgotten in favour of his statesmanly role in opening up the free-trade economy.
Bill McSweeney teaches in the International Peace Studies programme of the Irish School of Ecumenics