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The re-publishing of George Santayana’s two most significant works on America and American culture in Rethinking the Western Tradition series makes a great deal of sense. Santayana (1863–1952), philosopher, best-selling author, poet, man of letters, and humanist, in his numerous books provided us not only with a system of philosophy but also with a profound criticism of Western culture. As a Spanish-American thinker, he skillfully applied his cultural in-betweenness, not to mention his genial insights, to make his readers reconsider the tradition of the Western World and the contemporary challenges that had to be faced. He devoted much attention to American culture and, in this regard, he shaped his thought predominantly in relation to transcendentalism (Ralph Waldo Emerson) and pragmatism (William James, Josiah Royce, John Dewey). It should be added, however, that Santayana also sought a redefinition of his native Spanish culture—so that his intellectual links with Generation 1898, Spain’s momentous philosophical and literary movement, have frequently been studied by Spanish scholars. Last but not least, he focused on other cultural issues in terms of their ethnic character, cultural background, and national context; thus, he wrote, for example, about egotism inGerman philosophy (in Egotism in German Philosophy, 1915), about the British character, German freedom (both in Soliloquies in England, 1922), English liberty and American character (both in Character and Opinion in The United States, 1920).