The queen, on a velvet chair, perched among the rags for a grim, blue-chinned portrait.

ECONOMIST: Lucian Freud, painter, died on July 20th, aged 88

For American society as a whole, and for the rest of the world, there is the reassuring paradox that the world's strongest power has become a society that now elevates for admiration not square-chinned rough riders, but victims.

ECONOMIST: History