Browsing the shelves at the W.H. Smith English-language bookstore in Paris recently I was stunned by the sheer multiplicity of titles on something called the American empire, most written by Americans bemoaning our country’s alleged lapse into the disease of great power hubris, imperial overreach, and (perhaps at the same time) imperial decline. In such a climate, Josef Joffe’s “Uberpower: The Imperial Temptation of America” (W.W. Norton, 272 pages, $24.95) is an especially welcome addition. It addresses the subject of American power and its use and possible misuse from the point of view of a friendly outsider who wishes us well and believes we can, and possibly will, do better.

Mr. Joffe is that rarest of things, a true Atlanticist. He writes with a deep understanding of both European and American culture, as perhaps no other writer today can claim to do. Educated both in Germany and America, he has long had association with American academic and foreign policy institutions. Author of numerous books in both English and German, since 2000 he has been editor of the prestigious German publication Die Zeit, and is associated with a new foreign policy magazine, the American Interest.

In spite of its subtitle, this is not a book about America’s imperial temptation so much as one about what can be called our great power dilemma, which can be summarized thus: Whether we will it or not, America is “the hub of the world, both geographically and politically,” Mr. Joffe writes, virtually in a class by itself. At the same time, we have enormous “soft power” (“the entire world watches, wears, drinks, eats, listens and dances American”), but far from translating into influence, it has produced a counter-reaction. “Ubiquity breeds unease,” Mr. Joffe writes, “unease breeds resentment, and resentment breeds denigration as well as visions of omnipotence and conspiracy.” In other words, our sui generis status itself – quite apart from what we do or fail to do – is the source of the wave of anti-Americanism that sweeps the world today.

Mr. Joffe is particularly acute when analyzing European anti-Americanism, which is really what “Uberpower” is about. Sifting through public opinion polls, the European press, and some particularly rich anecdotal evidence, he concludes that for Europe, “anti-Americanism is both a conservative utopia and ersatz European nationalism” exacerbated by Europe’s evident inability to integrate the Other, which is to say, arrivals from outside the Continent. As a “post-heroic” culture, Europeans are bound to feel uncomfortable with America, where pride in nationhood and a strong sense of national mission still survive. Mr. Joffe puts it this way: “America possesses a keen sense of self – and what it should be. … The country still defines itself in terms of a mission which Europeans no longer do.”

The problem, Mr. Joffe explains, is that as powerful as it is, America cannot go it alone. It “does not need the world’s permission to act, but it does need the world’s support to succeed.” How might it do this? In his view, by taking more seriously the international treaties and obligations that it either has undertaken or should undertake. This is the weakest part of the book, as it is difficult to see how merely subscribing to the International Criminal Court or ratifying the Kyoto accords will change such deep-seated emotions.

It may well be that what Mr.Joffe has in mind is not so much the reluctance of the United States to accept these instruments as it is the style of our foreign policy pronouncements and the all-tooobvious contempt with which the present administration treats attempts by the so-called international community to lash us to a new set of rules.This nicely avoids mention of the United Nations oil-for-food scandals or farces like the U.N. Human Rights Commission, or, worse still, the Durban Conference on Racism,all of which have done much to undermine support for the approach he favors. To be fair, Mr. Joffe emphasizes that the Bush administration is merely expanding upon the practices of its predecessor, whose “soft triumphalism” (as he calls it) was made possible by an apparently more benevolent international environment. And he admits that practices such as preemptive war began in the early 19th century. Whatever one’s reservations about his prescriptions, “Uberpower” is still one of the best, and certainly one of the most entertaining, books on our current international dilemma.

Mr. Falcoff is resident scholar emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute. He last wrote for these pages about the French colonial war in Algeria.