When a French intellectual looked in the mirror in 1600, he saw a Frenchman and a Christian where he would have liked to have seen a Greek pagan.  Since the Church was still powerful, few intellectuals were as mad as Giordano Bruno, who was justly burned at the stake in 1600, for his neopagan notions.  Instead, the intellectuals became sly and ironic.  From Montaigne on, intellectuals began subjecting Catholic France to imaginary visitors from Latin America, Persia, and China, all of whom expressed astonishment at the silly religion, false reverence to the king, and loyalty to the great nation.  

And must the Senator from Illinois
Be this squat thing, with blinking, half-closed eyes?
This brazen gutter idol, reared to power
Upon a leering pyramid of lies?

At this point in the argument, I want to make it plain that I am not trying to write even a brief history of political universalism.  My basic intent is to show some of the more important influences—influences, I wish to emphasize, that I do not necessarily criticize much less condemn.  So far, I have briefly mentioned the Stoic ideal of world-citizenship, which was transformed into a more restrained celebration of the Imperium Romanum as an ideal of human community rooted in justice.  The disintegration of the Empire, rather than discrediting the imperial ideal, invested it with spiritual significance. I...