What frightens me is that we don't seem to have come far enough as a society since those times. Benjamin Barber and Noam Chomsky have done a pretty good job of exposing current-day American exceptionalism. This article points out that the attitudes which made such atrocities possible still exists today. Chomsky's essay "We Own the World"[1] is another good read - it's uncharacteristically short and accessible. Alas, "a prophet is without honour in his home town".