essay on american exceptionalism

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What Is American  Exceptionalism?

Editors' Note: this essay is the first in our new partnership with the Montreal Review , an online journal of world politics, economics, art, and culture. We will occasionally be cross-posting essays and book reviews with the kind permission of the Review. We encourage you to visit the Review at www.themontrealreview.com .

Patriotism, to quote George Bernard Shaw, is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it." The same may be said of American exceptionalism.

The phrase "American exceptionalism" has had a highly unusual career. It seems to have originated in debates in the 1920s and 1930s among American communists over whether some unique characteristic of American society inhibited the transition from capitalism to socialism. (Originally, it was employed as a term of abuse directed at those who believed or feared–that the United States might be exempted from the iron laws of historical development outlined by Marx.) In the 1950s, exceptionalism became a weapon in the Cold War, suggesting a national responsibility to lead the forces of the Free World in the containment of Soviet power. The terrorist events of September 11, 2001, reinvigorated the rhetoric of exceptionalism as an all-purpose explanation for the attacks ("they hate us because we are free") and a new sense of American mission, now identified with the global war on terror.

Most recently, American exceptionalism has emerged as a political slogan of the Tea Party and its acolytes. That President Obama "does not believe in American exceptionalism" was among the numerous charges leveled during the 2012 electoral campaign. Like his race and supposed lack of a birth certificate, this made Obama seem dangerously alien. In fact, as his administration's foreign policy became more and more warlike, Obama, like his predecessors, spoke of the uniqueness of the United States, a justification for our right to intervene in the affairs of nations throughout the world.

Long before the term itself existed, the idea of American exceptionalism was built into our culture. It has always been linked to the idea of freedom. The identification of the United States as a unique embodiment of liberty in a world overrun by oppression goes back to the American Revolution. Tom Paine, in his clarion call for independence, Common Sense , called America an "asylum for mankind," a place where people fleeing Old World tyranny could find freedom. Thomas Jefferson spoke of the new nation as an "empire of liberty." This seems an oxymoron, since empire suggests domination, but Jefferson's point was that unlike the empires of Europe, ours would be based on democratic self-government. Thus, American territorial expansion by definition meant the expansion of freedom and those who stood in its way (Indians, Mexicans, rival European powers) were ipso facto freedom's enemies. Abraham Lincoln, who also embraced the idea of a unique American democratic mission called the United States the last best hope of earth–although he thought the nation should spread freedom by example, not by invading other countries (he opposed the Mexican-American War). Throughout the nineteenth century, American exceptionalism was invoked by home-grown critics, such as abolitionists, who claimed the United States was not living up to its professed values, and by the European Left, who deployed the image of an exceptional nation where workers enjoyed political rights and economic opportunity as a weapon against the status quo in their own countries. Others (most famously Werner Sombart) cited the high American standard of living to explain the relative weakness of socialism compared to early twentieth-century Europe.

To a considerable degree, the essence of American exceptionalism–a nation state with a special mission to bring freedom to all mankind–depends on the "otherness" of the outside world, so often expressed in the manichean categories of New World versus Old or free world vs slave. Yet, at the heart of the idea lies an odd contradiction. American freedom is generally held to derive from a specific national history and unique historical circumstances–the frontier, the qualities of the Anglo-Saxon race, a divinely appointed mission, and so forth–and yet Americans claim for their experience and ideals universal relevance. America may be exceptional, but its exceptional role is to serve as a model for the rest of mankind. Presumably, when our self-appointed mission of promoting the worldwide spread of freedom has finally been achieved–when the world has become America writ large–America will no longer be exceptional.

At its best, the idea of American exceptionalism carries with it healthy pride in the freedoms Americans enjoy. But overall, the insistent claim for exceptionalism goes along with national hubris and closed-mindedness, and offers an excuse for ignorance about the rest of the world. Since the United States is so exceptional, there is no point in learning about other societies, as their histories have no bearing on ours.

Historians, unfortunately, have aided and abetted this parochialism. Perhaps the most original idea ever developed by an American historian was Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis, which explained the country's supposedly unique characteristics–political democracy, self-reliant individualism–as the product of the struggle to subdue the West. Cold War intellectuals provided historical justification, differentiating "good" from "bad" revolutions. In the 1950s, historians portrayed the American Revolution as a decorous constitutional debate among the educated elite, quite different from the class-based violence of revolutionary France and Russia, or Third World revolutions led by communists (even when, as in Vietnam, they invoked the American Declaration of Independence). As the historian Herbert Bolton complained many years ago, by treating the American past in isolation from the rest of the world, historians were helping to raise up "a nation of chauvinists."

Of course, the history of every country is, to some extent, unique, and the antidote to American exceptionalism is not to homogenize the entire past into a single global history. But the institutions, processes, and values that have shaped American history, among them the rise of capitalism, the spread of political democracy, the rise and fall of slavery, and international labor migrations, can only be understood in a global context. To be sure, as Robin Blackburn reminds us in his recent hemispheric history of slavery, international processes are worked out within specific national histories. The exceptionalist paradigm, however, homogenizes the rest of the world as having a single history, entirely different from that of the United States. Much writing on exceptionalism is based on sheer ignorance of other countries–the United States, we are told again and again (falsely) has the highest standard of living in the world, the highest rate of social mobility, the greatest racial and ethnic diversity, the most individual freedom, the least political radicalism, etc. Oddly, one genuine expression of American exceptionalism–the principle, embedded in the Fourteenth Amendment, that anyone born in the United States is automatically a citizen, regardless of the status of the parents–is now under assault by the very conservatives who so stridently proclaim their devotion to the exceptionalist paradigm.

The historical and political uses and abuses of exceptionalism came together in 2009-2010 in the debate over health care reform. A century ago, as Daniel Rodgers reminds us in his book Atlantic Crossings , American reformers and social scientists eagerly studied European responses to the crises of urbanization and industrialization. They thought European experiences could contribute to the development of American social policy. Fast forward to 2009-2010. Every advanced country in the world has some kind of national health care system. But in American debates, no one thought to refer to their experiences, except to hurl abuse. Obamacare would bring about the alleged horrors of the British National Health Service, or Canadian single payer health insurance–abuses "known" through rumor and invective, not actual investigation. All sides made a virtue of isolation and ignorance. Here is the deepest problem of American exceptionalism–the conviction that Americans have nothing to learn from the rest of the world.

The Montreal Review, January, 2013

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What Donald Trump and Dick Cheney Got Wrong About America

We allowed an important idea—American exceptionalism—­to be hijacked and misused. Now we need to rescue that idea and let it guide America at home and abroad.

I. A Dangerous Idea

C an America still lead the world? Should it? If so, how? These fundamental questions have lurked in the background for years. Donald Trump brought them front and center.

The knee-jerk response of national-security professionals to such questions is to offer a history lesson on the benefits of the “liberal international order” that America built after 1945. I once used that phrase at a campaign event in Ohio in 2016—I had advised both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden, and then worked for Clinton when she ran for president—and someone came up to me afterward and said, “I’m not sure what exactly you’re referring to, but I don’t like any of those three words!”

Right now, everything is up for debate when it comes to the basic purpose of U.S. foreign policy. For me, that’s unsettling. I was raised in Minnesota in the 1980s, a child of the late Cold War—of Rocky IV , the Miracle on Ice, and “Tear down this wall!” The ’90s were my high-school and college years. The Soviet Union collapsed. The Iron Curtain disappeared. Germany was reunified. An American-led alliance ended a genocide in Bosnia and prevented one in Kosovo. I went to graduate school in England and gave fiery speeches on the floor of the Oxford Union about how the United States was a force for good in the world.

Times have changed. These days, I’m back on a university campus, now as a teacher. My students have had a profoundly different upbringing. They were in elementary and middle school in the 2000s, children of the global War on Terror—of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, drones and Edward Snowden, and, most of all, the Iraq War. Many of them aren’t naturally inclined to see American foreign policy through a lens of optimism or aspiration. I hear this in my classes, and I see it in surveys that reveal a strong generational divide over the idea of “American exceptionalism.” Large numbers of young people question the merits of a unique American leadership role in world affairs.

This is partly because they have seen the country’s foreign policy so frequently fall short. But I suspect it is also because they have been exposed to a particularly arrogant brand of exceptionalism. For example, Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz published a book a few years ago called Exceptional , in which they boast of America’s unmatched “goodness” and “greatness”—conceding nothing, admitting no error. In their telling, the Vietnam and Iraq Wars were sound strategic decisions. George W. Bush’s administration’s use of torture was right; its critics were wrong. And on and on. Young people hear these kinds of arguments and say, Count us out .

Meanwhile, older generations are tilting toward a different outlook: the United States as the world’s No. 1 sucker. It’s time, many believe, to stop shouldering the burdens and letting others enjoy the benefits. This is Trump’s vision of “America first.” He is hostile toward America’s allies and contemptuous of cooperation. He loves to goad and bully (and even bomb) other countries and says alarming and irresponsible things about nuclear war. He has pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and more. He is not preaching isolationism; he is preaching predatory unilateralism.

The Iran deal and the dark side of American exceptionalism

Trump’s approach is dangerous, but he has surfaced questions that need clear answers. Those of us who believe that the United States can and should continue to occupy a global leadership role, even if a different role than in the past, have to explain why Trump is wrong—and provide a better strategy for the future.

In doing so, we should not play by his rules. An energized, inspiring, and ultimately successful foreign policy must cut through Trump’s false, dog-whistling choice between globalism and nationalism. It must combine the best kind of patriotism (a shared civic spirit and a clear sense of the national interest) and the best kind of internationalism (a recognition that when your neighbor’s house is on fire, you need to grab a bucket). And it should reject the worst kind of nationalism (damn-the-consequences aggression and identity-based hate-mongering) and the worst kind of internationalism (the self-congratulatory insulation of the Davos elite).

This calls for rescuing the idea of American exceptionalism from both its chest-thumping proponents and its cynical critics, and renewing it for the present time. The idea is not that the United States is intrinsically better than other countries, but rather this: Despite its flaws, America possesses distinctive attributes that can be put to work to advance both the national interest and the larger common interest.

In the wrong hands, American exceptionalism can be a dangerous idea. It can justify too much. It can admit too little. It can offend and alienate. But for proponents of an engaged and effective foreign policy, failure to own and define the idea—especially when malevolent forces are seeking to own and define so many national ideas—is even more dangerous. Without a sense of greater purpose about the nation’s work in the world, the U.S. will lose direction and ambition at a time when it badly needs both. And if that sense of purpose is not grounded in humility, the U.S. will fall victim to hubris and excess.

What follows is a case for a new American exceptionalism as the answer to Donald Trump’s “America first”—and as the basis for American leadership in the 21st century.

II. Self-Correction, Self-Renewal

A merican exceptionalism has meant different things to different people at different times: the unique geographic advantages of the continent, the story of the Revolution and the writing of the Constitution, the legacy of the frontier, the impulse to universalize the American experience. Some have taken this to an extreme, asserting that America is blessed by divine providence.

There is a common thread: the idea that the United States has a set of characteristics that gives it a unique capacity and responsibility to help make the world a better place.

The left and the right have abandoned American exceptionalism

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Most people are familiar with the standard story of how those characteristics have guided American foreign policy in the modern era. The United States stopped Hitler’s Germany, saved Western Europe from economic ruin, stood firm against the Soviet Union, and supported the spread of democracy worldwide. This story has always been compelling. It is also incomplete. Americans are no longer buying it at face value. What about the mistakes, the complexities, the imperfections—things like covert regime change across Latin America, support for brutal dictators, the invasion of Iraq, and the tragedies (despite the best of intentions) of Somalia and Libya? The Cheney version either ignores this dark underbelly or insists that the United States is “saved,” as it were, and therefore cannot sin. It is a self-serving lie that has generated skepticism about America’s strengths and virtues.

Still, the exceptionalist idea has proved resilient, no matter how many experts declare it useless or wrong. The expectation that the United States can do, and be, better runs deep—even among America’s fiercest critics. One such critic, the journalist Suzy Hansen, used the phrase broken heart in her book, Notes on a Foreign Country , to describe the way many people feel about the reality of American power. The phrase reflects a perhaps unwitting expectation, a hope, that the U.S. will act differently from other powerful countries. The idea of American exceptionalism speaks to not just who we have been but who we can be .

A distinctive part of America’s postwar history has been the ability to adjust after failures and follies, which are an inevitable part of global leadership. The Marshall Plan and nato came into being only after a period in which Harry Truman’s administration reduced the American footprint in Western Europe and imposed self-defeating conditions on economic assistance. The Bush-era HIV/ aids program that saved millions of lives arrived many years after the woeful response to the epidemic by Ronald Reagan’s administration. In Latin America, from the end of the Cold War through the Barack Obama years, heavy-handed intervention and support for dictators gave way to mutual respect, engagement as equals, and the normalization of relations with Cuba.

This capacity for self-appraisal, self-correction, and self-renewal separates the United States from past superpowers. It is what President Obama—elected in part because of popular opposition to the Iraq War—meant when he said, on the 50th anniversary of the march to Montgomery, Alabama: “Each successive generation can look upon our imperfections and decide that it is in our power to remake this nation to more closely align with our highest ideals.”

After Trump, the United States will face its next great readjustment. Part of the challenge will be to repair the damage he has done—to alliances, to treaties, to the perception of American motives, to trust in America’s word, and, most of all, to the very idea of America. But the United States must also update its purpose in a changing world.

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, U.S. foreign policy was rooted in a single, simple idea: Americans were not willing to endure global war and global depression ever again. The Cold War followed quickly, and provided a clarity of purpose to efforts both at home and overseas. When the Soviet Union collapsed, so did the guiding objectives of U.S. foreign policy. Exceptionalism began to mean, in the words of the political scientist Stanley Hoffmann, nothing more than “being, remaining, and acting as the only superpower.” Then came 9/11. America stumbled into the War on Terror, which started with the justified invasion of Afghanistan but continued with the invasion of Iraq, one of the most catastrophic decisions in American history. The result, a decade and a half later, is an open-ended military commitment that spans multiple countries.

Today, three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the U.S. still hasn’t found a durable answer to the most basic of questions: What is American foreign policy for ?

III. The Purpose

T he foreign-policy community’s traditional response to that question has been to describe America as the world’s “indispensable nation.” That is no longer sufficient. By itself, indispensability is more wearying than energizing—it’s the boy in the Hans Brinker story, holding back the flood by putting his finger in the dike. It speaks to fulfilling others’ needs, not one’s own. And it comes with no limits.

The core purpose of American foreign policy must be to protect and defend the American way of life. This raises the obvious challenge that the very definition of the American way of life is currently up for grabs. No vision of American exceptionalism can succeed if the United States does not defeat the emerging vision that emphasizes ethnic and cultural identity and restore a more hopeful and inclusive definition: a healthy democracy, shared economic prosperity, and security and freedom for all citizens to follow the paths they choose. This requires domestic renewal above all, with energetic responses at home to the rise of tribalism and the hollowing-out of the middle class. Foreign policy can support that renewal, while dealing effectively with external threats.

These fall into two categories. The first emanate from other countries, specifically the major powers: There is China’s long-term strategy to dominate the fastest-growing part of the world, to make the global economy adjust to its brand of authoritarian capitalism, and above all to put pressure on free and open economic and political models. And there is Russia’s pursuit of a related strategy to spread neofascist ideology and destabilize Western democracies. The threats in the second category are those that transcend national borders: the spread of weapons of mass destruction; deadly epidemics like Ebola; irreversible planetary harm caused by climate change; another global economic meltdown; and massive cyberattacks.

All of these have the potential to cripple America as we know it. Here’s the kicker: None of them can be effectively confronted by the United States alone, and none can be effectively confronted if the United States sits on the sidelines.

The U.S. must mobilize a common response to these threats. In some cases, the response needs to be global, bringing the U.S. together with its rivals—including China—to face shared challenges such as nuclear proliferation and climate change. In others, the U.S. should work exclusively with its friends and allies to resist the spread of aggression, authoritarianism, and malignant corruption.

Cooperation of this kind does not happen spontaneously; it requires some actor to step up and lead. The U.S. has historically served this function, a reality I experienced firsthand during my time in government. If the U.S. had not led the charge, the Paris Agreement—which rallied 195 nations to pledge to reduce carbon emissions—would not have come into being. If, after a sluggish start, the U.S. had not led the response to the Ebola outbreak in 2014, an epidemic could have swept across Africa and proved difficult to contain. And even when the U.S. makes mistakes at home, its leadership abroad can come to the rescue: If the U.S. had not coordinated a global response, the 2008 financial crisis could easily have spiraled into a second Great Depression.

Consider what would happen if America gave up its leadership role. Might China fill the gap? I have not seen anyone make a persuasive case that China would or could, and in any event China sometimes is the threat. The Europeans cannot replace America either, given how preoccupied they are with holding their own union together.

How does exceptionalism fit into this analysis? The United States cannot keep leading if it starts being seen by others as a “normal” power, interested exclusively in its narrow self-interest. America has to keep demonstrating that it is an unusual power, in terms of its attitudes, habits, methods, and ideas. Being exceptional means putting these core attributes to work for America’s own interests, yes—but also for the common good. Similarly, at home, the public will accept major investment in foreign policy only if it believes the United States is not just a normal country, with normal responsibilities. Exceptionalism is how you reconcile patriotism with internationalism.

IV. The Attitude: Enlightened Self-Interest

A national idea like American exceptionalism will fail, however, if it is neither plausible nor well defined. We should therefore identify the distinctive attributes of the United States, explain how to revive and reinforce them, and prescribe how to put them to work in foreign policy.

The first of those attributes has been a recognition that the best and most durable solutions are ones in which America’s gain also contributes to gains by others. From the republican ideas of the Founders—in particular, from their notion of interdependence—flows an attitude. Alexis de Tocqueville called it “self-interest rightly understood.” Today, we might call it positive-sum thinking.

This attitude guided America’s grand strategy after the Second World War, as the U.S. rebuilt vanquished foes, protected the sea lanes, and responded to natural disasters halfway around the world. For centuries, European states waged war with grim regularity. The fact that the major powers have not returned to war with one another since 1945 is a remarkable achievement of American statecraft. Meanwhile, China’s extraordinary development was the result not of failures in U.S. foreign policy but of its successes. The U.S. maintained the security that helped drive remarkable economic growth across the Asia-Pacific region.

This is why so many observers around the world fear American retreat more than they fear American domination. During my time in the Obama administration, when I talked with counterparts in the Middle East or East Asia, I often heard a litany of complaints about things the United States had done—punctuated by a demand that the United States do more. It reminded me of the classic restaurant joke: “The food here is terrible … and such small portions!”

At some level, most of the world knows that America’s positive-sum approach is valuable and unusual. At a gathering of Asian nations in 2011, I heard the Chinese foreign minister address the issue of Beijing’s ambitions in the South China Sea this way: “China is a big country, and other countries here are small countries. Think hard about that.” This is China’s way, and Russia’s way. It generally has not been America’s way.

The souring of American exceptionalism

That is, it wasn’t until Trump came along. He treats foreign policy in simple terms: us against them. He sizes up the European Union and nato and sees a bunch of smaller countries banding together to take advantage of the United States, on trade, security, migration, you name it. Trump’s worldview is one of grievance and victimization: “They’re laughing at us.” The U.S. must reject the mafia logic—“Pay up or else”—that Trump has applied to America’s alliances. The country’s allies are a special national asset. The U.S. can rely on dozens of strong, independent nations to help thwart terror attacks, resist aggression by adversaries, and more—in a way no rival can. China’s spending spree around the world has failed to buy it a single reliable ally.

Yes, burden-sharing is important. But we need a richer conception of burden-sharing than arbitrary funding targets or cutting the margins of trading partners. A new American exceptionalism would shift from absorbing the lion’s share of the costs to distributing them more fairly. This does not mean less leadership but rather a different kind of leadership, giving others a greater voice along with greater accountability. The U.S. knows how to do this. Building institutions to spread responsibility for shared problems is part of America’s DNA. And on the global stage, institution-building enhances American power and effectiveness.

V. The Habit: Problem-Solving

T he second key attribute of American exceptionalism is a can-do spirit. We live in a country full of problem-solvers, in a world full of problems. The historian Frederick Jackson Turner’s famous “frontier thesis” described Americans as having a “practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients.” For the past 70 years, a habit of problem-solving has defined America’s role in the world.

I saw this problem-solving streak at every level of government, including the very top. Once, during climate-change negotiations in Copenhagen, in December 2009, heads of state met in a tiny room until 2 o’clock in the morning. When the meeting finally broke up, a blizzard was raging outside. Only a single motorcade could pull up at a time. The result was a bizarre taxi line: world leaders queuing in a Danish conference center in the middle of the night, waiting for their cars to arrive. Eventually, Nicolas Sarkozy, then the president of France, stepped forward and shouted, “I want to die!” But President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton were energized. They raced around the conference center the next day, twisting arms and ultimately salvaging the Copenhagen Accord, which, while flawed and incomplete, helped pave the way for the 2015 Paris Agreement. By the time Obama left office, he had reached an unequivocal conclusion: “If we don’t set the agenda, it doesn’t happen.”

America’s can-do approach is sometimes naive. It often fails to come to terms with structural causes or foundational flaws. The U.S. is better at addressing the poor quality of roads around Kabul (which officials know how to fix) than regime rot and corruption (which they do not know how to fix). Even so, at a time when solutions to global problems demand cooperation among governments and the private sector—including faith communities and philanthropies, mayors and activists—the U.S. possesses the creativity and boldness required to assemble unlikely coalitions.

Some people will not unreasonably ask why, if America is any good at problem-solving, the world is such a mess. U.S. foreign policy has certainly failed to solve a lot of problems, and created more than a few. These skeptics are operating from the wrong baseline, though. A nation’s foreign policy is the total of imperfect decisions made by imperfect people facing imperfect choices with imperfect information. Mistakes are inevitable, and even successes beget new problems.

This is not to say that there isn’t considerable room for improvement, especially when it comes to setting priorities. Americans may like to solve problems, but which problems should they be trying to solve? The answer cannot be all of them, everywhere. As the Harvard economist Michael Porter has pointed out, “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” America’s priorities should consist of the list I outlined earlier—challenges that legitimately threaten its way of life. Americans should throw every ounce of their problem-solving weight against those threats.

Even with clearer priorities, the U.S. needs to adopt the foreign-policy version of the serenity prayer: Grant us the wisdom to know the difference between those things we can change and those we cannot. Too often, the U.S. succumbs to the temptation to go toe-to-toe with adversaries in situations where they have an advantage. For example, when the Chinese military started building on rocks and reefs in the South China Sea, the U.S. jumped up and down even though it could do little to stop the construction short of using military force, which it was not prepared to do. The U.S. ended up looking weak. Worse, it let the measure of success become something other than its vital interest, which is not those rocks and reefs. Its vital interest is the freedom of navigation for commercial and military ships. The U.S. can enforce that interest by increasing naval operations in the area and getting its partners to do the same, demonstrating that the world rejects China’s claims to these waters and forcing Beijing to decide whether to stop us. Sometimes, the answer is not to try to solve the problem created by others, but rather to make others contend with realities created for them. This was what Truman was up to with the Berlin airlift, which then–Secretary of State Dean Acheson later wrote “gave the Russians the choice of either not interfering or of initiating an air attack, which might have brought upon them a devastating response.”

Finally, the relationship between America’s interests at home and its interests abroad must always be kept in mind. Obama, listening to his national-security team ask for more money for Afghanistan, would shake his head and point out that he was the only person in the room who had to think about all the things we were not spending money on at home. This should not be about guns versus butter, but about what will position America to compete effectively—especially with China, which is now poised to out-invest the U.S. in technological innovation and R&D.

It should also be about where the middle class fits into America’s foreign-policy priorities. The erosion of America’s middle class is sapping the nation’s strength. The main causes lie in domestic policy, but foreign policy bears responsibility as well.

During the Obama administration, when the national-security team sat around the Situation Room table, we rarely posed the question What will this mean for the middle class? Many other countries have made economic growth that expands the middle class a key organizing principle of their foreign policy. The American people want their leaders to do the same: to focus on how strength abroad can contribute to a strong economic foundation at home, and not just vice versa.

And they’re right. The country’s entire national-security strategy—the resources it allocates, the threats and opportunities it prioritizes, the events and circumstances it tries to shape, the relationships it cultivates—should more explicitly be geared toward reviving America’s middle class. As a starting point, the U.S. must define what counts as its “economic interest,” looking beyond generic GDP growth in order to understand the impact of specific policies on corporations and communities. Who are the real winners and losers? I recall working on a diplomatic effort for an American firm that wanted to close an energy deal in Europe, which the State Department saw as a potential “win.” We later learned that the company planned to import materials from other countries, not the United States. Whose interests, exactly, were we serving? Whose interests are we serving by putting diplomatic muscle into helping companies like Walmart open stores in India?

America’s trade and investment strategies should place less emphasis on making the world safe for corporate investment and more emphasis on international tax and anti-corruption policies that target drivers of inequality. Jennifer Harris, a former State Department colleague, posed an arresting question when I spoke with her recently: How is it that the domestic economic agenda of the Obama administration could be so different in its values and priorities from President George W. Bush’s—so much more focused on the needs of working people—while its international economic agenda was nearly identical? The answer is that both political parties came to treat international economic issues as somehow separate from everything else. U.S. internationalism became insufficiently attentive to the needs and aspirations of the American middle class. Changing that is a prerequisite of an effective and sustainable foreign policy that enhances the American way of life.

VI. The Method: Comfort With Power

A third attribute of America’s exceptional role is that the country is more willing than other advanced democracies to wield power in all forms. This is in no small part because Americans see themselves (rightly or wrongly) not as choosing to act but rather as called to act, by circumstances or by other nations.

Dick Cheney’s approach revolved almost exclusively around hard power: F-35s, battleships, tanks. Donald Trump has exacerbated this problem, boosting the military’s budget while depleting the diplomatic corps. A new American exceptionalism would recognize that the country’s durable power comes from creative, credible, and tenacious diplomacy backed by the threat of force, not force backed by the eventual hope of diplomacy.

First, the U.S. has to wind down its participation in the forever wars of the Middle East. This doesn’t mean abandoning the region or shutting down the counterterrorism mission. But it does mean finally bringing the war in Afghanistan, which has now gone on for more time than any other war in American history, to a responsible close. Military engagement in other parts of the region needs stricter limits. The blank check for military action that Congress gave the president in 2001 should be transformed into a much narrower authorization, one that excludes participation in counterproductive missions, such as the ongoing one in Yemen, whose only clear outcome is a humanitarian crisis.

In addition, the U.S. should rebalance its priorities among the various forms of American power—defense, diplomacy, development, trade, investment, and technology. One idea is to group them all into a unified national-security budget, which would allow for shifting money from outdated military systems and bloated line items to, say, investments in artificial intelligence and resilient infrastructure. Building that budget requires asking hard questions. For example, the U.S. has historically been the least vulnerable nation in the world, thanks to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans; are enough resources going into a strategy to deal with the fact that, in cyberspace, it is now among the most vulnerable? And in the strategic competition with China, is the United States underweighted on the military dimension or in the realm of technology and economics?

Finally, the U.S. must get better at seeing both the possibilities and the limits of American power—and match its means to its stated ends. As Walter Lippmann observed, “In foreign relations, as in all other relations, a policy has been formed only when commitments and power have been brought into balance.”

Syria is a tragic case of the means-ends gap. The American president declared that the Syrian leader, Bashar al‑Assad, had to go, but the United States didn’t make that happen. Hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered, millions fled the country, and a civil war continues to rage. As a participant in many of the debates about whether to intervene, I have struggled to determine where we went wrong. My tentative conclusion is that we should have done more to try to achieve less. Those of us who advocated for using substantial American means in Syria also argued for maximalist ends (a swift transition to a new government in Damascus) that proved unachievable. Meanwhile, those who advocated for more limited objectives also argued that we should use very modest means, or not get involved at all. Nobody was arguing to both increase the means (more and earlier pressure on Assad) and temper the ends (give up the demand that Assad leave and focus instead on curbing his worst behavior). That would not have solved the deeper problem, but it might have reduced the overall level of violence, death, and displacement, and set the stage for a better long-term outcome.

VII. The Ideas: The Common Good

T he fourth and final attribute emerges from a historical fact: The United States was fashioned not from a territory or tribe but from a set of ideas. The Founders proclaimed the values of liberty and equality. They established the supremacy of “We the People.” Although their worldview incorporated racist and sexist elements—the legacy of which continues to roil American society today—they also anticipated progress toward “a more perfect union.” Establishing a state based on ideas was itself exceptional. Europeans pursued independence based on nationality: as Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians. America’s story is different.

Crucially, the Founders believed not just in individual rights but in the common good. They were not small- d democrats but rather small- r republicans. They embraced the notion of interdependence—that human beings have shared interests and need institutions to pursue those interests, and that liberty can be preserved only through such institutions. They believed that a good society is the product of active citizenship combined with responsible and virtuous leadership. And they viewed these truths as universal—the United States was not coming into existence to rise and fall as other powers had, but rather to transform the world.

These founding principles coalesced into an American creed, which eventually served as the basis for the country’s postwar influence abroad. But in recent decades, that foundation has cracked. Many (mostly white) Americans are looking not to the nation’s founding ideas but to Donald Trump’s very unexceptional version of nationalism as a channel for their frustrations and hopes. America’s friends are taking note of the divisions, while its competitors are exploiting them. Franklin D. Roosevelt once spoke of the United States as an “arsenal of democracy”; today, an arsenal of autocracy is forming as authoritarian states seek to put pressure on America’s political and economic model.

The current moment calls for a new form of patriotism—for citizens of all political stripes to embrace a sense of national pride based on America’s founding ideas. In the current climate, this is a task of daunting proportions. But I believe that most people are eager for an inclusive and welcoming patriotic spirit—one that, as the historian Jefferson Cowie put it, refuses to surrender the American story “to the voices of exclusion and avarice.” Winning this battle will require enormous work at home, where much of the emphasis must lie.

It will also require a renewed belief in the power of American values in the world. I can imagine two types of readers rolling their eyes. One group will ask why we should make values a priority at all, rather than simply securing our interests. But as the late John McCain once noted, “It is foolish to view reason and idealism as incompatible or to consider our power and wealth as encumbered by the demands of justice, morality, and conscience.” A place for values in the conduct of foreign policy is built into the character of a country founded on ideas. It is also essential to our interests, because freer, less corrupt, more open societies are less likely to threaten America’s way of life. Moreover, the U.S. cannot expect to lead if it is offering only pragmatism, and not aspiration. It can’t necessarily outbid China, which has much more cash to spend abroad, but it can out-persuade and out-inspire.

The other group will call out the many times that the United States has not acted on its asserted ideals. The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr reminds us why this will always be so: “Hypocrisy and pretension are the inevitable concomitants of the engagement between morals and politics,” he wrote, adding, “They do not arise where no effort is made to bring the power impulse of politics under the control of conscience.” American leaders after Trump do not need to make categorical claims that place values above every other consideration. They should be more honest and more precise, but no less proud. Values have been a genuine consideration in the weighing of interests, and the U.S. has tried far more than other great powers to take them into account. This is rare and impressive enough. Proceeding from this basis, a new American exceptionalism can more consistently, if more modestly, secure a place for values in the conduct of foreign policy.

VIII. The Black Box

S ome argue that the United States is fractured beyond repair—that Donald Trump is destroying American credibility and, with it, all possibility of renewed American leadership. Some also contend that you can no longer make arguments to the American people based on higher purpose—they are too angry or too cynical.

Recommended Reading

The Left and the Right Have Abandoned American Exceptionalism

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I see it another way. Let’s not forget that, throughout American history, the path forward has been determined not in times of disruption but in their aftermath. The New Deal followed the Great Depression, just as the Marshall Plan followed the Second World War. When Donald Trump exits the White House, the United States will once again have a chance to chart a new course. Its friends will not give up on the country in the interim, at least not until the next election clarifies whether Washington’s abdication is the work of a rogue president or the will of the country. They want to be America’s partners. As for the American people, I believe that they would welcome a renewed form of exceptionalism that addresses their concerns, speaks to their aspirations, and restores confidence that their country can be a force for good in the world.

America as a force for good in the world—who talks like that anymore? Is this all just the “gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians,” as Robert Hayden put it in his poem “Frederick Douglass”? Well, I believe we should talk like this. Our greatest leaders through history talked like this. And America’s most principled critics, like Douglass himself, have been among its greatest patriots. They understood, as we must, that American exceptionalism is not a description of reality but the expression of an ambition. It is about striving, and falling short, and improving. This is the essence of a patriotism that every American can embrace.

Reclaiming America’s place in the world will be an extraordinary challenge. For decades, the country neglected needed updates to the international system. Now Donald Trump is blowing that system up. The saying goes that when a natural disaster hits, “build back better.” The same applies to foreign policy. Not since 1945 has the U.S. had the chance to go back to basics and decide which parts to keep, which to scrap, and, above all, which to reinvent. After Trump, it can do just that.

When I was Joe Biden’s national-security adviser, we paid a visit to Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, who expressed admiration for America’s famed “black box.”

“Black box?” Biden asked.

“You know, the black box that the Americans have buried that contains the secret for how they can constantly reinvent themselves.”

We need to find and unlock that black box.

This article appears in the January/February 2019 print edition with the headline “Yes, America Can Still Lead the World.”

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American Exceptionalism in a New Era

In  American Exceptionalism in a New Era , editor Thomas W. Gilligan, director of the Hoover Institution, has compiled thirteen essays by Hoover fellows that discuss the unique factors that have historically set America apart from other nations and show how America and its people have prospered and emerged as global leaders by prizing individuality and economic freedom and explore key factors in America’s success, including immigration, education, divided government, light regulation, low taxes, and social mobility. America isn’t perfect, they argue, but it is exceptional.

In  American Exceptionalism in a New Era , editor Thomas W. Gilligan, director of the Hoover Institution, has compiled thirteen essays by Hoover fellows that discuss the unique factors that have historically set America apart from other nations and how these factors shape public policy. The authors show how America and its people have prospered and emerged as global leaders by prizing individuality and economic freedom and explore key factors in America’s success, including immigration, education, divided government, light regulation, low taxes, and social mobility. America isn’t perfect, they argue, but it is exceptional.

Taken together, the essays form a broad exploration of American attitudes on everything from tax rates and property rights to the role of government and rule of law. They examine the beliefs of statesmen including Alexis de Tocqueville, Abraham Lincoln, Herbert Hoover, and Ronald Reagan—each of whom considered America fundamentally different from other nations.

Finally they outline the ways American exceptionalism may be in decline, with consequences both at home and abroad. At a time when “the idea of the American dream is not in high repute in our public discourse,” the authors collectively argue that the United States must continue to believe in itself as exceptional and indispensable or else face a world where America no longer sets the standard.

Contributors:  Annelise Anderson, John Cochrane, William Damon, Niall Ferguson, Stephen Haber, Victor Davis Hanson, Edward P. Lazear, Gary Libecap, Michael McConnell, George H. Nash, Lee Ohanian, Paul E. Peterson, Kori Schake

For more information, visit the  Hoover Press ; or download PDFs of individual chapters below.

CLICK HERE TO BUY »

CHAPTER 1: Is America Still the “Hope of Earth”? by Paul E. Peterson

Advocates of American exceptionalism say the United States is special, a nation for the world to admire, a country worthy of emulation, a place chosen for destiny. Their claim resembles the assumption made by the young child at a Jewish seder who asks, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” But is it really correct to say that America is exceptional?

CHAPTER 2: Legal Origins of American Exceptionalism by Michael McConnell

On a cold February day, uniformed officers in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, shot and killed five unarmed young men. Naturally, the community was in an uproar. Th ere were massive public protests. Some political leaders and agitators exploited these killings, labeling them a “massacre” before there had even been time for a public inquiry. There were insistent demands for systemic change. Agitators distributed selective accounts of the event, featuring altered images presenting the officers in the worst possible light.

CHAPTER 3: American Exceptionalism by Gary Libecap

The United States has been unusual in its protection of property, especially in the realm of physical resources like land but also with regard to intellectual property and encouraging innovation.

CHAPTER 4: Intellectual Property as a Pillar of American Exceptionalism by Stephen Haber

Usually we associate property rights with physical property. I have a property right to a bottle of water until I drink it all. I have a property right to my house and to my car. But most of the important property rights in the modern economy are intangible property rights. If we think about the market caps of the big corporations in the United States today, many of them don’t really have much in the way of physical assets. What are the physical assets of Facebook? It’s a bunch of kids with hoodies.

CHAPTER 5: The Exceptional Economy by Edward P. Lazear

When I was a young child, my father used to emphasize to me that, in America, we were all individuals and could do anything we desired. America was the land of opportunity. But while most coming-of-age Americans may have heard such sentiments from their own parents, the message is not universal. When I conveyed my father’s words to a European colleague, she said, “Oh, really? We were told exactly the opposite. 

CHAPTER 6: Law and the Regulatory State by John Cochrane

To be a conservative—or, as in my case, an empirical, Pax-Americana, rule-of-law, constitutionalist, conservative libertarian—is pretty much by definition to believe that America is “exceptional”—and that it is perpetually in danger of losing that precious characteristic. Exceptionalism is not natural or inborn but must be understood, cherished, maintained, and renewed each generation—and its garden is always perilously unattended.

CHAPTER 7: Whither American Exceptionalism? by Niall Ferguson

When you give an essay a title like “Whither American exceptionalism?” there is obviously a joke to be made. Is American exceptionalism withering? That is really the question that I want to pose.

CHAPTER 8: What Makes America Great? Entrepreneurship by Lee Ohanian

This chapter discusses the remarkable exceptionalism of American entrepreneurship and how entrepreneurship has been so critical in forging our nearly 250-year record of economic success. I will also discuss some policy options that can promote and foster entrepreneurship in the future.

CHAPTER 9: American Dominance of the International Order by Kori Schake

A hegemon is the state that sets and enforces the rules of the international order. In 1945, with the rest of the world in tatters, the United States had a dominant position, could have imposed its will on any other state. In characteristic American fashion, we had a raucous domestic debate— not about how to dominate the world but about whether to remain engaged in the world at all. 

CHAPTER 10: The Foundations of America’s Exceptional Role in the World by Victor Davis Hanson

“Exceptionalism” doesn’t necessarily mean “preeminence.” It’s derived from a Latin word excipere —“to take from” or “to select” or “to differentiate.” The English concept is the same as in Latin: to take out something from the majority or take it away from the implied normal group. In theory an “exceptional” trait could be bad or good. But in the context of the United States, we mean that America is positively weird. It’s fortunately odd. It’s thankfully different. In other words, America is not like most nations but preferable to them.

CHAPTER 11: Herbert Hoover and American Exceptionalism by George H. Nash

During his very long life Herbert Hoover developed a political and social philosophy that he believed could explain the greatness of the country he loved. To understand his vision of American exceptionalism, we need to understand the exceptional shape of his career before he entered American public life.

CHAPTER 12: Ronald Reagan and American Exceptionalism by Annelise Anderson

Ronald Reagan’s earliest explicit view of American exceptionalism was expressed in a speech he gave to the 1952 graduating class at William Woods College in Fulton, Missouri, the same town in which Winston Churchill had told the United States that an iron curtain had fallen across Europe from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic. At this time Reagan had been out of the country on only one occasion, when he had gone to England to make a movie. He hadn’t liked England—the food was not good, the people were regimented, and it was too cold

CHAPTER 13: The American Dream Is Alive in the Minds of Young Americans by William Damon

Other presentations in this volume have discussed important features of American exceptionalism from economic, historical, legal, and policy perspectives. I have no expertise in those fields, and I have learned a great deal from the authors of presentations that draw on them.

Based on the chapter by Hoover Senior Fellow Edward Lazear, Examining America’s Exceptional Economy is a 4-part video series that explores why the American economy has prospered and what needs to be done to sustain its prominence in the global economy.

America's Exceptional Economy  (Episode 1)

America's Exceptional Work Ethic  (Episode 2)

America's Exceptional Labor Force  (Episode 3)

Sustaining America's Exceptional Economy  (Episode 4)

Ch. 1: Is America Still the “Hope of Earth”?

Ch. 2: Legal Origins of American Exceptionalism

Ch. 3: American Exceptionalism

Ch. 4: Intellectual Property as a Pillar of American Exceptionalism

Ch. 5: The Exceptional Economy

Ch. 6: Law and the Regulatory State

Ch. 7: Whither American Exceptionalism?

Ch. 8: What Makes America Great? Entrepreneurship

Ch. 9: American Dominance of the International Order

Ch. 10: The Foundations of America’s Exceptional Role in the World

Ch. 11: Herbert Hoover and American Exceptionalism

Ch. 12: Ronald Reagan and American Exceptionalism

Ch. 13: The American Dream Is Alive in the Minds of Young Americans

View the discussion thread.

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An Exceptional Debate: The Championing of and Challenge to American Exceptionalism

This is a review essay of recent books on American Exceptionalism. It provides a basic outline of the contours of the debate surrounding whether America is an "exceptional" nation and how that exceptionalism can/should be enacted.

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American Political Thought

james ceaser

Political Studies Review

Unlike the immediate post-Cold War era of triumphalism and neoliberal prosperity, the last decade has witnessed the erosion of the ‘unipolar moment’ after the major setbacks of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and the financial crisis of 2008. In this context, reconsidering the idea of American exceptional identity is not simply a scholastic exercise, but an urgent practical problem concerning the direction of US leadership in the world. This article presents a review of three representative discourses on American exceptionalism at a critical juncture. First, the neoconservatives Charles W. Dunn et al. and Robert Kagan attempt to reconfirm the virtue of the ‘American Creed’ and reassure the American people that the US will lead the world as it has done. Second, Tony Smith represents a dominant liberal consensus in US academia. Following Louis Hartz, Smith emphasizes not triumphalism, but an historical irony of American liberal identity. Finally, Anatol Lieven, resonating with the ‘multiple traditions’ approach against the liberal consensus school, suggests a more complex understanding of American exceptionalism by analyzing the existence of the ‘antithesis’ or the Jacksonian tradition.

Daniel Sorluca

There has always existed the narrative that the United States had be blessed by providence and thus held a special role in the development of humanity. However, by accepting the notion of being exceptional, the American mind became burdened with the turmoil of deciding how to best serve their divine mission. The consequence of possessing such an indecisiveness, two simultaneous worldviews developed which resulted in an almost perpetual war for the soul of America. This has been catastrophic for world peace and security. In order to end this battle and thus enable a more peaceful existence, American Exceptionalism must be understood.

Brian M Whaley

This paper tracks the origin and development of American Exceptionalism as well as the ways in which it has been expressed throughout American history. American Exceptionalism can be traced from Puritan origins up through the Revolutionary period, the American Renaissance, Pax Americana, and to contemporary America where it still exists. This paper describes the influences and changes to this idea throughout its existence while highlighting the ways in which it has affected the American people and those that they have interacted with. Throughout the paper two ways of expressing American Exceptionalism, closed and open exceptionalism, are used to categorize different actions, ideas, and events. The paper concludes by offering up Abraham Lincoln as an example of how to express American Exceptionalism in a beneficial way.

John Torpey

Carter Wilson

Hilde Restad

How does American exceptionalism shape American foreign policy? Conventional wisdom states that American exceptionalism comes in two variations – the exemplary version and the missionary version. Being exceptional, experts in U.S. foreign policy argue, means that you either withdraw from the world like an isolated but inspiring “city upon a hill,” or that you are called upon to actively lead the rest of the world to a better future. In her book, Hilde Restad challenges this assumption, arguing that U.S. history has displayed a remarkably constant foreign policy tradition, which she labels unilateral internationalism. The United States, Restad argues, has not vacillated between an “exemplary” and “missionary” identity. Instead, the United States developed an exceptionalist identity that, while idealizing the United States as an exemplary “City upon a Hill,” more often than not errs on the side of the missionary crusade in its foreign policy. Utilizing the latest historiography in the study of U.S. foreign relations, the book updates political science scholarship and sheds new light on the role American exceptionalism has played – and continues to play – in shaping America’s role in the world.

Eric K Leonard

Conan-Cordero Vieira

An analysis of components of contemporary American Exceptionalism along with likely social consequences. This paper examines, and offers critique of, American interventionist policies and tendency for the hawkish in modern foreign policy

Jason Edwards

Ever since President Obama took office in 2009, there has been an underlying debate amongst politicians, pundits, and policymakers over America’s exceptionalist nature. American exceptionalism is one of the foundational myths of U.S. identity. While analyses of Barack Obama’s views on American exceptionalism are quite prominent, there has been little discussion of conservative rhetorical constructions of this important myth. In this essay, I seek to fill this gap by mapping prominent American conservatives’ rhetorical voice on American exceptionalism.

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American Exceptionalism: An Introduction

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• Trevor B. McCrisken 2  

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On September 11, 2001, following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC, United States President George W. Bush declared that: ‘America was targeted for the attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.’ Americans would never forget this day but, Bush assured them, the US was ‘a great nation’ that would ‘go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world’. 1 In the midst of a horrific tragedy, the president was drawing upon a long tradition in American public rhetoric that is informed by a belief in American exceptionalism. 2

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Bush’s response to the attacks was particularly well received in the immediate aftermath of the events. A Gallup poll conducted on September 14–15, 2001 saw the president’s approval rating jump 35 points to 86 per cent (the previous poll was conducted from September 7–10). This was the highest rallying effect on presidential approval in Gallup’s polling history and the fourth highest approval rating ever measured for a president. One week after the attacks, following a nationwide address announcing a war on terrorism, Bush scored the highest ever rating for a president when his approval reached 90 per cent. See ‘Attack on America: Review of Public Opinion’, Gallup News Service , September 17, 2001; David W. Moore, ’Bush Job Approval Reflects Record “Rally” Effect’, Gallup News Service , September 18, 2001

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and Moore, ‘Bush Job Approval Highest in Gallup History’, Gallup News Service , September 24, 2001.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America , trans. George Lawrence, ed. J. P. Mayer ( New York: Harper Perennial, 1988 )

Jack P. Greene, The Intellectual Construction of America: Exceptionalism and Identity from 1492 to 1800 ( Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993 ).

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism , revised edn ( London: Verso, 1991 ).

Michael H. Hunt, Ideology and US Foreign Policy ( New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987 ) 14–15.

Daniel Bell, ‘The End of American Exceptionalism’, The Public Interest (Fall 1975), reprinted in Bell, The Winding Passage: Essays and Sociological Journeys 1960–1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1980) 249, 270–1.

Bell, ‘“American Exceptionalism” Revisited: The Role of Civil Society’, The Public Interest , no. 95 (Spring 1989 ) 38–56.

Byron E. Shafer, ed., Is America Different? A New Look at American Exceptionalism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991); emphasis in the original.

See, for example, Byron E. Shafer, ‘“Exceptionalism” in American Politics?’ PS: Political Science & Politics , vol. 22, no. 5 (September 1989) 588–94

Kim Voss, The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century ( Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993 )

Rick Halpern and Jonathan Morris, eds, American Exceptionalism? US Working-Class Formation in an International Context ( Basingstoke: Macmillan — now Palgrave Macmillan, 1997 )

Richard Rose, ‘How Exceptional is the American Political Economy?’ Political Science Quarterly , vol. 104, no. 1 (Spring 1989) 91–115

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Edward A. Tiryakian, ‘American Religious Exceptionalism: A Reconsideration’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science , vol. 527 (May 1993) 40–54

Sven H. Steinmo, ‘American Exceptionalism Reconsidered: Culture or Institutions?’ in Lawrence C. Dodd and Calvin Jillson, eds, The Dynamics of American Politics: Approaches and Interpretations ( Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1994 ) 106–31

Andrei S. Markovits and Steven L. Hellerman, Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001 ).

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Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword ( New York: W. W. Norton, 1996 ).

Joseph Lepgold and Timothy McKeown, ‘Is American Foreign Policy Exceptional? An Empirical Analysis’, Political Science Quarterly , vol. 110, no. 3 (Fall 1995 ).

Michael Kammen, ‘The Problem of American Exceptionalism: A Reconsideration’, American Quarterly , vol. 45, no. 1 (March 1993) 11.

Roger S. Whitcomb, The American Approach to Foreign Affairs: An Uncertain Tradition (Westport, CT and London: Praeger, 1998) esp. ch. 1–2.

H. W. Brands, What America Owes the World: The Struggle for the Soul of Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); see Preface for quotations.

John Fousek, To Lead the Free World: American Nationalism and the Cultural Roots of the Cold War ( Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000 ) 2–7.

Siobhan McEvoy-Levy, American Exceptionalism and US Foreign Policy: Public Diplomacy at the End of the Cold War (Basingstoke: Palgrave - now Palgrave Macmillan, 2001) 64–5, 143.

Anders Stephanson, Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right (New York: Hill & Wang, 1995) xiv.

Hunt, Ideology ; McEvoy-Levy, American Exceptionalism ; John Dumbrell, The Making of US Foreign Policy ( Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990 ).

David Ryan, US Foreign Policy in World History ( London: Routledge, 2000 ) 15.

Hans Kohn, American Nationalism: An Interpretive Essay ( New York: Macmillan, 1957 ) 8–9.

Samuel P. Huntington, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony ( Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1981 ) 13–30.

Abraham Lincoln, ‘Speech at Chicago, Illinois. July 10, 1858’, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume II, 1848–1858 , ed. Roy P. Basler ( New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953 ) 499–500.

Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds, The Invention of Tradition ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983 ) 10–11.

Robert N. Bellah, ‘Civil Religion in America’, Daedalus , vol. 96, no. 1 (Winter 1967) 1–21.

Joyce Appleby, Lynn V. Hunt and Margaret C. Jacob, Telling the Truth About History ( New York: W. W. Norton, 1994 ) 92.

Anthony D. Smith, Myths and Memories of the Nation ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999 ) 13.

As noted above, H. W. Brands uses the terms ‘exemplarist’ and ‘vindicationist’ to describe the two main strands of exceptionalist belief; see Brands, What America Owes the World . Similarly, Michael Hunt identifies two persistent ’visions’ of American national greatness: ’the dominant vision equating the cause of liberty with the active pursuit of national greatness in world affairs and the dissenting one favoring a foreign policy of restraint as essential to perfecting liberty at home.’ See Hunt, Ideology , 43. See also Trevor B. McCrisken, ’Exceptionalism’ in Alexander DeConde, Richard Dean Burns, and Fredrik Logevall, eds, Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy , 2nd edn (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2001) vol. 2, 63–80.

John Winthrop, ‘A Modell of Christian Charity’, Winthrop Papers , vol. II, 1623–1630 (Massachusetts Historical Society, 1931) 294–5.

George Washington, ‘First Inaugural Address in the City of New York, April 30, 1789’, Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States from George Washington 1789 to George Bush 1989 ( Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1989 ) 2.

See Robert Booth Fowler and Allen D. Hertzke, Religion and Politics in America: Faith, Culture, and Strategic Choices (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995) esp. ch. 1, 2 and 12.

Thomas Paine, Common Sense , ed. Isaac Kramnick (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987 ) 91.

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer and Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America , ed. Albert E. Stone ( Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986 ) 70.

See Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948) ch. 1.

George Washington, ‘Farewell Address, United States, September 17, 1796’, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1902 , ed., James D. Richardson (Washington, DC: Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1907) vol. I, 222.

John Quincy Adams, ‘Mr. Adams’ Oration’, Niles’ Weekly Register (Baltimore) New series no$121, vol. VIII: whole no. 515 (July 21, 1821 ) 331–2.

See Serge Ricard, ‘The Exceptionalist Syndrome in US Continental and Overseas Expansionism’, in David K. Adams and Cornelis A. van Minnen, eds, Reflections on American Exceptionalism ( Keele: Keele University Press, 1994 ) 73.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Cycles of American History ( Boston MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1986 ) 16.

Albert K. Weinberg, Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1935; Chicago: Quadrangle, 1963 ) 8, 62.

Richard Hofstadter, ‘Manifest Destiny and the Philippines’, in America in Crisis: Fourteen Crucial Episodes in American History , ed. Daniel Aaron (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1952 ) 173–200.

Quoted in Robert L. Beisner, Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898–1900 ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985 ) 81.

Woodrow Wilson, ‘A Commencement Address, June 5, 1914’, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson , ed. Arthur S. Link (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989) vol. 30, 146–8.

Quoted in Walter LaFeber, The American Age: US Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad, 1750 to the Present , 2nd edn ( New York: W. W. Norton, 1994 ) 281.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, ‘Address to the Congress on the State of the Union, January 6, 1942’, The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1942 Volume: Humanity on the Defensive ( New York: Harper, 1950 ) 35.

See David W. Moore, ‘Public Trust in Federal Government Remains High’, Gallup News Service , January 8, 1999.

See Frank Newport, ‘President-Elect Bush Faces Politically Divided Nation, But Relatively Few Americans Are Angry or Bitter Over Election Outcome’, Gallup News Service , December 18, 2000.

See Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s , 2nd edn (New York & London: Routledge, 1994)

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society , revised and enlarged edition ( New York: W. W. Norton, 1998 )

Adalberto Aguirre, Jr. and Jonathan H. Turner, American Ethnicity: The Dynamics and Consequences of Discrimination , 2nd edn ( Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998 ).

Mort Rosenblaum, Mission to Civilize: The French Way ( San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986 ).

Kathryn Tidrick, Empire and the English Character ( London: IB Tauris, 1990 ).

Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny , revised edn ( London: Odhams Books, 1964 ).

Quoted in Richard J. Ellis, ed., Speaking to the People: The Rhetorical Presidency in Historical Perspective ( Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998 ) 1.

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McCrisken, T.B. (2003). American Exceptionalism: An Introduction. In: American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403948175_1

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Exceptionalism and Difference in American (Literary) Studies

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After more than three decades of postexceptionalist scholarship that has trained us to look for circuits, symmetries, and solidarities across national lines, we would do well to return to . . . [asking] how particular US economic, political, and social differences have been created and maintained over time.

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French Reflections

My essay on "american exceptionalism" in "myth america".

Yesterday was the publication date for an edited volume I have an essay in: Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past . Now, since I am historian of early modern France, most of the edited volumes I have contributed to have sales figures in the low three figures (also sometimes price tags in the low three figures—could there be a connection?) and are lucky to get reviewed anywhere other than the reliable and wonderful H-France website. Myth America is different. It is edited by my terrific, prolific, and very media-savvy colleagues Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer , and is published by Basic Books, which is mounting a serious publicity campaign for it. Since the “biggest lies and legends” of the title are principally ones retailed by the GOP, we can also expect that it will stir up a bit of controversy.

My own essay is on “American Exceptionalism,” which was a fascinating topic to study. The history of the concept is well known, thanks to the work of Daniel Rodgers , Abram Van Engen , and others. There have been many, often contradictory narratives about the supposedly special place America holds in the world. Oddly, one of the first people to use the actual phrase “American exceptionalism” was Joseph Stalin, in the course of smacking down American Communists who were arguing that America’s exceptional historical circumstances meant that it would need to take an exceptional route towards socialism. American social scientists like Seymour Martin Lipset later seized on it as an explanatory category, and by the 1980’s it was entering the political mainstream.

Thanks for reading French Reflections! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Although my essay goes over some of this familiar territory, I tried to do two different things as well. First, in keeping with the spirit of taking on legends and lies, I offered an explanation for why “American exceptionalism” is an exceptionally pointless concept. An exception implies a rule—but what rule? What are we “exceptional” in regard to? Many of the social scientists and nearly all of the politicians who talk about “American exceptionalism” never even mention other countries, let alone try to seriously define world-wide patterns of development that hold for everywhere else, but not for us. Besides, it is in the very nature of nationalism for a country to stress the things that make it unique. That’s why, in addition to “American exceptionalism,” historians are familiar with concepts like “l’exception française” and “der deutsche Sonderweg.” In the essay, I quipped that if scholars of Britain and Japan don’t have similar catchphrases, it is simply because they take those countries’ exceptional natures so utterly for granted.

The second thing I tried to do was to explain why this rather strange and unsonorous phrase became so influential in American politics. The reason, it turns out, has to do with a single, influential politician—a Stalinist of sorts in his own way, although no socialist: Newt Gingrich. Starting in the early 1990’s, he started using the phrase in nearly all his speeches and found that attacking his ideological adversaries for not believing in “American exceptionalism” was a very useful political cudgel to wield. It was certainly more acceptable than just calling them traitors. In response, many Democrats fell over themselves protesting that yes, yes, they too believed in American exceptionalism. The most enthusiastic of them, perhaps not surprisingly, was the reliably triangulating Hillary Clinton (“If there’s one core belief that has guided and inspired me every step of the way, it is this. The United States is an exceptional nation”). Meanwhile, the one prominent Republican who explicitly rejected the idea was Donald Trump. For Trump, international relations are a brute, zero-sum competition between states who fundamentally differ only in their degree of toughness and strength. The point is not to be better than, or different from everyone else, only to beat them.

Scholars have often proclaimed “the end of American exceptionalism.” Amusingly, I found that one of the earliest to do so was my father, Daniel Bell , in a 1975 essay of that title for The Public Interest (“Today, the belief in American exceptionalism has vanished with the end of empire, the weakening of power, the loss of faith in the nation’s future”). As I conclude: “The diagnosis was understandable, but the obituary was premature…. The very vacuity of the notion has been its strength… There is little reason, then, to think that it will pass away in the new season of despair that we are living through today.”

If you buy a copy of Myth America you will make Kevin, Julian, the contributors, and our editor all very happy.

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — American Values — American Exceptionalism: History, Critiques, and Path Forward

American Exceptionalism: History, Critiques, and Path Forward

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Published: Sep 12, 2023

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The historical foundations of american exceptionalism, critiques of american exceptionalism, path forward: addressing critiques.

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The Jamie Dimon manifesto

• The 2023 shareholder letter from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is chock-full of policy ideas.
• Dimon says the US needs to strengthen its role in the global economy and address domestic unrest.
• He proposes policy changes to improve economic equality and bolster the earned income tax credit.

A robust new policy platform just dropped — and it's not from either leading presidential candidate.

Jamie Dimon , the billionaire CEO of JPMorgan Chase, outlines some of the biggest issues facing the company, the country, and the world in his 2023 annual shareholder letter.

Dimon's manifesto touches on everything from AI to geopolitics and includes an emotional appeal for the US to use its power to bring the West together in a time of global turbulence. Though Dimon's annual letters usually address policy, this year's is much more extensive than usual, an intriguing turn from the well-known CEO of the country's largest bank who's eyed a future in politics .

For now, Dimon has presented a suite of policy proposals on a range of issues, from bolstering the US's international influence to improving the lives of low-income people. The letter affirms Dimon's views on American exceptionalism and presents ways that policy needs to evolve to drive that vision.

Strength on the world stage, starting with aid for Ukraine

A major theme in Dimon's letter is the importance of global peace in furthering America's ambitions and the belief that the US should use its power and influence to ensure stability.

He points to American leadership as crucial in resolving the war in Ukraine.

"Ukraine's struggle is our struggle," he writes.

While a significant number of Republicans in Congress oppose more aid to Ukraine , Dimon says that Ukraine requires the US's help "immediately" and that aid to Ukraine will flow back into the American economy since many of the weapons and equipment used in the war are made in the US.

The letter emphasizes that the West needs to project "unquestioned military might." He writes that "the specter of nuclear weapons — probably still the greatest threat to mankind — hovers as the ultimate decider, which should strike deep fear in all our hearts."

But the CEO says that the US needs to flex its other muscles of power — economic policy, diplomacy, and intelligence — beyond military strength, and leaders need to explain why it's so important for the US to remain a major player on the world stage.

Rethinking global trade alliances

Dimon says that as the US reimagines its military alliances and strategies, it must do the same when it comes to economic policy. While the West may have overlooked China at its own peril, it's time to "just fix it," which means engaging "thoughtfully" with China — without fear.

Related stories

"Done properly, such a strategy would help strengthen, coalesce and possibly be the glue that holds together Western democratic alliances over decades," Dimon writes.

He also believes that the US should reenter the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which former President Donald Trump pulled out of early into his tenure in order to instead focus on one-on-one trade policies.

Dimon writes that policy measures are necessary to bolster industries that are important for national security, such as the semiconductor and rare-earth-minerals sectors, but the government's role should generally be more limited. For example, he says the government should set specific rules on tax policy but take a smaller role in setting broad social policies.

Any industrial policy should have what he calls "twin provisions": limitations on political interference, such as mandating social policy, and a reduced government role in permitting requirements.

More broadly, Dimon says the country needs to rethink international economic rules and structure. He envisions a potentially "reimagined" Bretton Woods — the agreement that originally created the International Monetary Fund .

'The fraying of the American dream'

Dimon identifies two key issues driving domestic unrest — the heated debate around immigration and border security and "the fraying of the American dream."

He believes that Congress should take stronger action on border control and push for policies to drive economic growth. He believes that citizens losing trust in the government is "damaging to society," and the government needs to take decisive action to improve economic conditions for low-income and rural Americans and those who feel "left behind."

"And to be fair, business could use its influence to do less to further its own interest and more to enhance the nation as a whole," he said.

Dimon points to the growth in wage inequality, saying that "wrong" policy decisions have failed lower-earning Americans. Dimon said that all jobs — even "starter jobs" — should be viewed with respect.

He points to two ways to help improve economic equality. First, he believes that educational institutions, including high schools and community colleges, should be "judged on the quality and income level" of the jobs graduates (or nongraduates) get. He also says that workers need job-skills training to fill roles that are available in the tech industry.

"We already spend a tremendous amount of money on education — just not the right way," Dimon writes.

Dimon also believes Congress should expand the earned income tax credit, which provides a tax break to moderate- and low-income families.

In Dimon's vision, that credit would be available to all lower-income workers — without proration for those without children — and turned into a "negative income payroll tax, paid monthly," which could be in the form of monthly checks or a paycheck boost.

Dimon previously said that taxes on the wealthy could help offset the costs of expanding the EITC.

Dimon says that while the US faces "complex and difficult tasks ahead," he believes the country will be able to rise to meet those challenges.

"I remain with a deep and abiding faith in the strength of the enduring values of America," he writes.

Watch: Highlights from Biden's fiery State of the Union address

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NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

David Folkenflik

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust.

NPR's top news executive defended its journalism and its commitment to reflecting a diverse array of views on Tuesday after a senior NPR editor wrote a broad critique of how the network has covered some of the most important stories of the age.

"An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America," writes Uri Berliner.

A strategic emphasis on diversity and inclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, promoted by NPR's former CEO, John Lansing, has fed "the absence of viewpoint diversity," Berliner writes.

NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment.

"We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," she wrote. "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."

NPR names tech executive Katherine Maher to lead in turbulent era

She added, "None of our work is above scrutiny or critique. We must have vigorous discussions in the newsroom about how we serve the public as a whole."

A spokesperson for NPR said Chapin, who also serves as the network's chief content officer, would have no further comment.

Praised by NPR's critics

Berliner is a senior editor on NPR's Business Desk. (Disclosure: I, too, am part of the Business Desk, and Berliner has edited many of my past stories. He did not see any version of this article or participate in its preparation before it was posted publicly.)

Berliner's essay , titled "I've Been at NPR for 25 years. Here's How We Lost America's Trust," was published by The Free Press, a website that has welcomed journalists who have concluded that mainstream news outlets have become reflexively liberal.

Berliner writes that as a Subaru-driving, Sarah Lawrence College graduate who "was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother ," he fits the mold of a loyal NPR fan.

Yet Berliner says NPR's news coverage has fallen short on some of the most controversial stories of recent years, from the question of whether former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election, to the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19, to the significance and provenance of emails leaked from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden weeks before the 2020 election. In addition, he blasted NPR's coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

On each of these stories, Berliner asserts, NPR has suffered from groupthink due to too little diversity of viewpoints in the newsroom.

The essay ricocheted Tuesday around conservative media , with some labeling Berliner a whistleblower . Others picked it up on social media, including Elon Musk, who has lambasted NPR for leaving his social media site, X. (Musk emailed another NPR reporter a link to Berliner's article with a gibe that the reporter was a "quisling" — a World War II reference to someone who collaborates with the enemy.)

When asked for further comment late Tuesday, Berliner declined, saying the essay spoke for itself.

The arguments he raises — and counters — have percolated across U.S. newsrooms in recent years. The #MeToo sexual harassment scandals of 2016 and 2017 forced newsrooms to listen to and heed more junior colleagues. The social justice movement prompted by the killing of George Floyd in 2020 inspired a reckoning in many places. Newsroom leaders often appeared to stand on shaky ground.

Leaders at many newsrooms, including top editors at The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times , lost their jobs. Legendary Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron wrote in his memoir that he feared his bonds with the staff were "frayed beyond repair," especially over the degree of self-expression his journalists expected to exert on social media, before he decided to step down in early 2021.

Since then, Baron and others — including leaders of some of these newsrooms — have suggested that the pendulum has swung too far.

Author Interviews

Legendary editor marty baron describes his 'collision of power' with trump and bezos.

New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger warned last year against journalists embracing a stance of what he calls "one-side-ism": "where journalists are demonstrating that they're on the side of the righteous."

"I really think that that can create blind spots and echo chambers," he said.

Internal arguments at The Times over the strength of its reporting on accusations that Hamas engaged in sexual assaults as part of a strategy for its Oct. 7 attack on Israel erupted publicly . The paper conducted an investigation to determine the source of a leak over a planned episode of the paper's podcast The Daily on the subject, which months later has not been released. The newsroom guild accused the paper of "targeted interrogation" of journalists of Middle Eastern descent.

Heated pushback in NPR's newsroom

Given Berliner's account of private conversations, several NPR journalists question whether they can now trust him with unguarded assessments about stories in real time. Others express frustration that he had not sought out comment in advance of publication. Berliner acknowledged to me that for this story, he did not seek NPR's approval to publish the piece, nor did he give the network advance notice.

Some of Berliner's NPR colleagues are responding heatedly. Fernando Alfonso, a senior supervising editor for digital news, wrote that he wholeheartedly rejected Berliner's critique of the coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, for which NPR's journalists, like their peers, periodically put themselves at risk.

Alfonso also took issue with Berliner's concern over the focus on diversity at NPR.

"As a person of color who has often worked in newsrooms with little to no people who look like me, the efforts NPR has made to diversify its workforce and its sources are unique and appropriate given the news industry's long-standing lack of diversity," Alfonso says. "These efforts should be celebrated and not denigrated as Uri has done."

After this story was first published, Berliner contested Alfonso's characterization, saying his criticism of NPR is about the lack of diversity of viewpoints, not its diversity itself.

"I never criticized NPR's priority of achieving a more diverse workforce in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. I have not 'denigrated' NPR's newsroom diversity goals," Berliner said. "That's wrong."

Questions of diversity

Under former CEO John Lansing, NPR made increasing diversity, both of its staff and its audience, its "North Star" mission. Berliner says in the essay that NPR failed to consider broader diversity of viewpoint, noting, "In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans."

Berliner cited audience estimates that suggested a concurrent falloff in listening by Republicans. (The number of people listening to NPR broadcasts and terrestrial radio broadly has declined since the start of the pandemic.)

Former NPR vice president for news and ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin tweeted , "I know Uri. He's not wrong."

Others questioned Berliner's logic. "This probably gets causality somewhat backward," tweeted Semafor Washington editor Jordan Weissmann . "I'd guess that a lot of NPR listeners who voted for [Mitt] Romney have changed how they identify politically."

Similarly, Nieman Lab founder Joshua Benton suggested the rise of Trump alienated many NPR-appreciating Republicans from the GOP.

In recent years, NPR has greatly enhanced the percentage of people of color in its workforce and its executive ranks. Four out of 10 staffers are people of color; nearly half of NPR's leadership team identifies as Black, Asian or Latino.

"The philosophy is: Do you want to serve all of America and make sure it sounds like all of America, or not?" Lansing, who stepped down last month, says in response to Berliner's piece. "I'd welcome the argument against that."

"On radio, we were really lagging in our representation of an audience that makes us look like what America looks like today," Lansing says. The U.S. looks and sounds a lot different than it did in 1971, when NPR's first show was broadcast, Lansing says.

A network spokesperson says new NPR CEO Katherine Maher supports Chapin and her response to Berliner's critique.

The spokesperson says that Maher "believes that it's a healthy thing for a public service newsroom to engage in rigorous consideration of the needs of our audiences, including where we serve our mission well and where we can serve it better."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

American Exceptionalism: Triumphs, Trials, and the Ever-Evolving Narrative

This essay about explores the intricate narrative of American exceptionalism, tracing its evolution through historical nuances and ideological complexities. Positioned as a daring experiment transcending mere nationhood, the concept asserts the United States as a unique crucible for liberty and democracy. The 19th-century manifest destiny, a divine pursuit of territorial expansion, collided with the harsh realities faced by indigenous communities, prompting a moral reevaluation. The post-World War II era thrust the U.S. into a global role, championing freedom during the Cold War but facing internal discord in events like the Vietnam War and Civil Rights Movement. Economic exceptionalism in the late 20th century attracted global attention, yet economic inequality raised questions about inclusivity. The 21st century introduced new challenges, prompting reflections on the balance between security and civil liberties post-9/11, and exposing vulnerabilities in the economic system during the global financial crisis. Climate change highlighted the interconnectedness of nations, challenging assumptions of environmental immunity. Despite trials, American exceptionalism endures as a dynamic narrative, embracing both shadows and brilliance. The essay concludes that American exceptionalism unfolds as an ever-evolving saga, not of flawlessness but perpetual transformation, guiding the nation towards a more inclusive and enlightened destiny. Moreover, at PapersOwl, there are additional free essay samples connected to American exceptionalism.

How it works

In the intricate tapestry of global narratives, American exceptionalism emerges as a captivating and constantly evolving motif, sculpting the identity of the United States amidst a web of historical subtleties and ideological paradoxes. This deeply rooted concept weaves a rich fabric of identity that reflects the intricate dance between triumphs and tribulations, portraying a nation entangled in the mystery of its own destiny.

At its nucleus, American exceptionalism boldly proclaims that the United States transcends mere nationhood; it is a daring experiment, a dynamic interplay of ideals and aspirations unparalleled on the global stage.

This audacious assertion, resonating with the visionary image of a “city upon a hill” articulated by the Founding Fathers, presents the U.S. as a distinctive crucible for liberty, a standard-bearer of democracy, and a multifaceted arena for the pursuit of happiness.

The 19th-century doctrine of manifest destiny injected a divine sense of purpose into the American narrative, propelling the nation westward in an ambitious quest for territorial expansion. However, this zealous pursuit collided with the harsh realities of displacement and suffering endured by indigenous communities, prompting a reevaluation of the moral compass guiding American exceptionalism.

As the pages of history turned – from the crucible of the Civil War to the trials of the 20th century – American exceptionalism underwent metamorphosis. The post-World War II era thrust the U.S. into a global spotlight, assuming the role of a powerhouse during the Cold War as it championed freedom against the looming threat of communism. Nevertheless, the Vietnam War and the tumultuous struggles of the Civil Rights Movement injected poignant reminders of internal discord and moral intricacies into this narrative.

The latter part of the 20th century witnessed the rise of economic exceptionalism, propelling the United States to the pinnacle of global economic influence. The allure of the American Dream, promising prosperity and upward mobility, became a magnetic force attracting millions worldwide. Yet, the sheen of this dream dulled as economic inequality widened, prompting a thorough examination of the inclusivity of this national ideal.

The 21st century thrust American exceptionalism into a crucible of new challenges. The aftermath of 9/11 spurred profound reflections on the delicate equilibrium between security and civil liberties, testing the resilience of the narrative in the face of controversial policies. The global financial crisis spotlighted vulnerabilities in the economic system, sparking debates about the sustainability of perpetual growth and the equitable distribution of opportunities.

Climate change, an urgent global reckoning, shattered illusions of isolation and emphasized the interdependence of nations. This challenge questioned the assumption that the U.S. could navigate environmental perils unscathed, emphasizing the imperative for a collective, global response.

Yet, amidst these trials, the essence of American exceptionalism perseveres. It is not an unyielding monolith but a dynamic narrative that embraces both shadows and brilliance. The resilience of the American people, their capacity for introspection, and their ability to recalibrate stand as a testament to this enduring exceptionalism. The nation grapples with its history, acknowledging the shadows while forging a path toward a more equitable and just society.

American exceptionalism, then, unfolds as an ever-evolving saga – a narrative not of flawlessness but of perpetual transformation. As the United States confronts the uncertainties of the future, the mosaic of exceptionalism will continue to mold its identity, guiding policies, influencing international relations, and inspiring an ongoing quest for a more inclusive and enlightened destiny.

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American Exceptionalism: Triumphs, Trials, and the Ever-Evolving Narrative. (2024, Feb 20). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/american-exceptionalism-triumphs-trials-and-the-ever-evolving-narrative/

"American Exceptionalism: Triumphs, Trials, and the Ever-Evolving Narrative." PapersOwl.com , 20 Feb 2024, https://papersowl.com/examples/american-exceptionalism-triumphs-trials-and-the-ever-evolving-narrative/

PapersOwl.com. (2024). American Exceptionalism: Triumphs, Trials, and the Ever-Evolving Narrative . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/american-exceptionalism-triumphs-trials-and-the-ever-evolving-narrative/ [Accessed: 16 Apr. 2024]

"American Exceptionalism: Triumphs, Trials, and the Ever-Evolving Narrative." PapersOwl.com, Feb 20, 2024. Accessed April 16, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/american-exceptionalism-triumphs-trials-and-the-ever-evolving-narrative/

"American Exceptionalism: Triumphs, Trials, and the Ever-Evolving Narrative," PapersOwl.com , 20-Feb-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/american-exceptionalism-triumphs-trials-and-the-ever-evolving-narrative/. [Accessed: 16-Apr-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2024). American Exceptionalism: Triumphs, Trials, and the Ever-Evolving Narrative . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/american-exceptionalism-triumphs-trials-and-the-ever-evolving-narrative/ [Accessed: 16-Apr-2024]

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CFP: "America was Never Innocent": Special issue for the Thirtieth Anniversary of James Ellroy's American Tabloid

Theme issue of Cluses: A Journal of Detection

Guest editors: Nathan Ashman (University of East Anglia) and Steven Powell (University of Liverpool)

2025 will mark the 30-year anniversary of James Ellroy’s American Tabloid , a historical novel which challenged the established view of the events leading up to the assassination of President Kennedy. For Ellroy, who had heretofore written acclaimed but largely genre-focused noir novels set in his native Los Angeles, it represented a critical breakthrough in his writing career, and proved a major step in him becoming a literary figure with an idiosyncratic revisionist take on American history. Thus, as Ellory’s literary career moves into its fifth decade, it seems like an appropriate moment to reappraise his vast literary output, particularly given the seeming decline of critical interest in his work from within the academy over recent years. This can perhaps be situated within the context of Ellroy’s ever provocative and controversial ‘Demon Dog’ persona, one that feels increasingly anachronistic in the era of social media and in the wake of recent political and social movements such as Black Lives Matter and Me Too. Yet these contexts also provide fertile ground for new or revised approaches to Ellroy’s canon and to the mode of the historical novel more broadly.

Subjects might include (but are not limited to):

• Ellroy’s characters as agencies of the State (and questions of state power more broadly)
• Ellroy and the Historical Crime Novel (including Ellroy’s influence on other practitioners and on the development of the form more broadly)
• The various meanings of ‘policing’ and its relationship with the State in Ellroy’s fiction
• Gender in Ellroy’s work
• Ellroy and American History
• Sexuality in Ellroy’s work
• Race/racism in Ellroy’s work
• Music in Ellroy’s work
• Underworld and Overworld. Webs of corruption linking organised crime to the LAPD in James Ellroy’s novels
• The protagonist as voyeur: Perverted viewpoints in the Quartet and Underworld USA novels
• Public and Private space
• Ellroy’s ‘demon dog’ persona (as well as broader consideration of animality in Ellroy’s work)
• Ellroy’s ‘late’ fiction

Submissions should include an abstract of 250-300 words and a brief bio (max 150 words). Proposals due 1st March 2025 and should be sent to Dr Steven Powell ( [email protected] ) and Dr Nathan Ashman ( [email protected] ). Full manuscripts due of 5,000 to 6,500 words based on accepted proposal will be due 31st October 2025.

About Clues : Published biannually by McFarland & Co., the peer-reviewed Clues: A Journal of Detection features academic articles on all aspects of mystery and detective material in print, television, and film without limit to period or country covered. It also reviews nonfiction mystery works (biographies, reference works, and the like) and materials applicable to classroom use (such as films). Executive Editor : Caroline Reitz, John Jay College/The CUNY Graduate Center; Managing Editor : Elizabeth Foxwell, McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers Clues Web Site: https://sites.google.com/site/cluesjournal/

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Guernica’s founder defends retracting Israeli coexistence essay that caused firestorm

( JTA ) — The founder of Guernica, the progressive literary magazine that published and then retracted an essay by an Israeli writer last month , says he never wanted to publish the piece in the first place.

In a seven-paragraph statement published on Guernica’s website Friday , Michael Archer writes that he thought from the start that the essay, “From the Edges of a Broken World” by Joanna Chen, was a departure from the journal’s values.

“When Jina [Moore, the editor in chief and publisher of the magazine] called my attention to this piece, I disagreed that it was a fit for the magazine,” Archer wrote, explaining, “Rather than mine the personal to expose the political, individual angst was elevated above the collective suffering laid bare in the extensive body of work Guernica has published from the region.”

The statement, titled “Moving Forward,” appears to be the “more fulsome explanation” the publication promised in early March when it removed the essay, opening a new frontline in a broad battle over the Israel-Hamas war in the literary world . More than a dozen members of Guernica’s volunteer staff resigned to protest Chen’s essay, and Moore, who advocated for Chen’s essay, resigned earlier this month.

Chen, a British-Israeli leftist, wrote in the piece how, despite the massacre of Israelis on Oct. 7, she was trying to stay committed to her belief in Israeli-Arab coexistence. Madhuri Sastry, a co-publisher of the magazine, called the essay “a hand-wringing apologia for Zionism and the ongoing genocide in Palestine.”

In his statement, Archer says he and other members of Guernica’s volunteer staff had engaged in fierce discussions about the essay and the questions it posed both before and after its publication.

He also said he had appointed a new publisher, Magogodi aoMphela Makhene, a South African fiction writer and antiracist educator. In her own statement , Makhene wrote, “Especially in this season, I look forward to helping build a Guernica that’s alive with the messy and electric charge that is our shared humanity; a publication courageous enough to see our full complexity and offer a lighthouse illuminating our highest possibilities.”

In her first interview since the firestorm, Moore told Semafor’s Ben Smith in an interview published Monday that Chen’s essay had undergone the same editorial process as other pieces Guernica published during her tenure and rejected Archer’s suggestion that she had overridden his objections to publish it.

Moore said she found Archer’s portrayal of the essay as focusing on “personal angst” to be “dismissive.” She said she thought Chen had presented an important perspective, even though she said that in retrospect and given the feedback she had received, she might have edited it differently.

“I understood it to be asking an important question. I understood it not to necessarily find a particularly great answer,” Moore said about Chen’s essay, which has since been republished by Washington Monthly . “The sort of baseline question I understood it to be asking is: How can you operate from a position of empathy in such a moment? One of my takeaways from the piece was [that] it’s very difficult and it might not be possible.”

Smith asked Moore, who has reported from conflict zones around the world and lived extensively in East Africa, whether she saw what is happening in Gaza as “such an out-of-scale crazy set of atrocities by the Israelis” that it should not be subject to normal rules of debate and discourse. “I don’t think I’m qualified to answer that question,” she answered.

Smith also asked whether she thought the firestorm over Chen’s essay was “driven by antisemitism.” Critics of the decision to retract it said the episode was further evidence of antisemitic discourse in progressive and literary spaces .

Moore’s answer: “I’m not going to speculate about what’s inside people’s heads.”

She said she thought it was Guernica, and not Chen’s essay, that marked a departure from the 15-year-old literary magazine’s values.

“It’s not uncommon for smart people to disagree about how they interpret a piece. And I think that … in publishing, that’s a virtue and not a threat,” Moore said. “I don’t really know how to do a publication in a different way, which is one reason I knew I didn’t belong there anymore.”

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A Pathbreaking Singer Arrives at the Met, With Pearls and Tattoos

Dav­óne Tines, who stars in the oratorio “El Niño,” is challenging traditions in classical music and using art to confront social problems.

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By Javier C. Hernández

The bass-baritone Dav­óne Tines, wearing Dr. Martens boots, a sleeveless black shirt and six vintage pearl rings, stood on a rehearsal stage at the Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan the other day and began to sing.

“My soul’s above the sea and whistling a dream,” he sang, a passage from the Nativity oratorio “El Niño” by John Adams, in which Tines makes his Met debut this month. “Tell the shepherds the wind is saddling its horse.”

Tines, 37, known for his raw intensity and thundering voice, has quickly become one of classical music’s brightest stars. He has won acclaim for performances of Bach, Handel and Stravinsky, and he has helped champion new music, originating roles in operas like Adams’s “ Girls of the Golden West ” and Terence Blanchard’s “ Fire Shut Up in My Bones .”

Tines has also used his art to confront social problems, including racism and police brutality. In 2018, he was a creator of and starred in “ The Black Clown ,” a searing rumination on Black history and identity inspired by a Langston Hughes poem. In 2020, he released a music video after the police killing of Breonna Taylor, calling for empathy and action.

During a rehearsal break at the Met, he described his art as cathartic, saying his aim was to “pick apart the complicated, contentious existence that is knit into the American landscape.”

“It’s a blessing to be a performing artist because you get an explicit place to put your feelings,” he said. “It’s the blessing of having a channel.”

Those feelings are expressed in a voice that is “not only low, but profound,” said the theater director Peter Sellars, who helped start Tines’s career in 2014 when he cast him in the chamber opera “Only the Sound Remains,” with music by Kaija Saariaho. “He really goes to very extreme and intense places,” Sellars said. “The performance is not just nice, it’s not just acceptable, it’s not just neat and well done. It has the quality that we’re present for an occasion.”

Through his wide-ranging work, Tines has helped to upend traditions in classical music. He has torn up the typical recital format, presenting deeply personal, carefully curated programs instead. He has embraced a wide variety of genres, moving freely from Bach cantatas to Black spirituals to minimalist music and gospel.

And Tines, at nearly 6 feet 3 inches with a muscular build, has challenged notions of what a classical star should look like. He wore a sleeveless all-white robe dress and Prada boots for the role of Jesus in Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion” with the New York Philharmonic last year. (“Jesus wears Prada,” he wrote on Instagram .) At the Grammys, he wore a sweater-dress inspired by his grandmother and decorated his shoes with earrings, as she often did before going to church.

As a gay Black man from Northern Virginia, Tines said he has often felt like an outsider. At a Lincoln Center cafe, he looked across the street to the Juilliard School, his alma mater. He began to recount his struggles there, describing how he felt misunderstood by teachers and colleagues because he could not relate to the standard vocal repertoire.

“I had to find my own path,” he said. “I had to find myself in other ways.”

Tines grew up in Fauquier County, Va., about an hour and a half outside of Washington, where his family has lived for generations. As a child, he was acutely aware of the racial and economic divisions in his hometown; he once said he “grew up in a Ralph Lauren ad on slave burial ground.” He was raised primarily by his grandparents. (His grandmother still calls at least twice a day.)

He grew up singing at a Baptist church in Orlean, Va. His grandfather, who served in the military and rose to become a chief warrant officer at the Pentagon, had served as music director at several churches in the area. But Tines’s real passion was for the violin, which he played in youth ensembles, rising to the rank of concertmaster. His grandparents encouraged him to give singing a try, and in high school he won leading roles in productions of “Ragtime” and “Les Misérables.”

He went to college at Harvard, where he studied sociology. It was not until his senior year, when he took part in a production of Stravinsky’s opera “The Rake’s Progress,” that he began to think more seriously about opera.

At Juilliard, where he enrolled for graduate studies, he said he felt dehumanized because people were seen “for what they can do, as opposed to who they are.” He also felt a disconnect with the core repertoire — works like Schubert’s “Winterreise,” which depicts a man dealing with the rejection of a woman he loves.

“I had to contend with the assumption,” he said, “that this was the repertoire that I cared to engage with.”

But he found ways to connect. When he was struggling with a Brahms song about missing a loved one, he thought about his mother, who died when he was 22.

“I found that if I envisioned a person that I loved and then lost, I could sing the song with integrity,” he said. “This very long phrase in the Brahms was an incredible vehicle for holding all the wailing and crying I still had to do.”

In the early phase of his career, Tines said he felt like a hermit crab looking for bigger shells as he moved from show to show. He developed a specialty in new music, working with composers he had met in school.

When Matthew Aucoin, a Harvard classmate, was working on “Crossing,” an opera about Walt Whitman’s time as a nurse during the Civil War that premiered in 2015, he wrote the role of an escaped slave fighting for the Union for Tines.

Aucoin said he was drawn to Tines’s perceptiveness and his tender falsetto register. “He’s a Renaissance man,” he said, “blessed with not only a voice but also a fabulously keen eye, ear and mind.”

Sellars, who had heard Tines sing at Juilliard, hired him for “Only the Sound Remains,” which premiered in Amsterdam in 2016. Tines landed leading roles in other contemporary operas, playing Ned Peters, a runaway slave, in “Girls of the Golden West,” and Charles in “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” based on a memoir by The New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow.

But it was “The Black Clown,” which came to New York in 2019, that cemented his reputation as a visionary performer. Working with the composer Michael Schachter and the director Zack Winokur, he adapted Hughes’s poem into a teeming work of music, dance and theater, winning raves for his performance.

Tines, who had admired Hughes since fifth grade, said the poem “struck me like a lightning bolt.”

“The fact that someone was able to speak something that was so personally riveting,” he said, “but also so universal, was a revelation.”

When the Black Lives Matter protests spread in 2020, Tines was at first hesitant to use art to speak out. But he felt that the public was not fully comprehending the significance of the death of Breonna Taylor. In “Vigil,” he looks into the camera, his eyes filled with tears.

“Where there is darkness,” he sings, “we’ll bring light.”

Tines’s Black identity has continued to feature prominently in his work. In 2022, he and the violinist Jennifer Koh created “ Everything Rises ,” a multimedia show about their experiences as people of color in a predominantly white field that incorporated conversations with their relatives.

Adams said that Tines had an ability to “embody that particular kind of nobility and eloquence that you find in the great Black orators.”

“He really has a style to his singing that is unique,” Adams said, “in an operatic world where people sound more and more like each other.”

Tines has won praise for helping redefine the concert experience. In “ Recital No. 1: MASS ,” which came to Carnegie Hall in 2022, he played with the traditional Latin mass structure. He blended Bach with spirituals and other contemporary works, including pieces by Caroline Shaw, Tyshawn Sorey and Julius Eastman, as soul-searching questions were projected behind him.

Tines is now at work on a project, with his band, Dav­óne & the Truth, about Paul Robeson, the pioneering singer, actor and activist with whom he is often compared. (Robeson, known for his rendition of “Ol’ Man River” and other songs, died in 1976 .) He is tracing Robeson’s life and music, including a suicide attempt in a Moscow hotel room in 1961.

Tines, who recently had Robeson’s name tattooed on his left arm, said he was drawn to the vulnerability of that moment in Robeson’s life.

“I could connect to him more in a way to see that he wasn’t just a billboard of its Black exceptionalism,” he said, “but actually just a human .”

In recent days, Tines has been focused on “El Niño,” a work that he has performed several times over the past decade. In the oratorio, which is fully staged at the Met, he sings a variety of roles, including Joseph and Herod; at one point, he is the voice of God.

The soprano Julia Bullock, a classmate from Juilliard who is also singing in “El Niño,” said she was pleased to see her friend find a place in classical music.

“He’s really arriving at something,” she said. “It’s good fun and play and experimentation. It doesn’t feel like he’s worn down or overwhelmed. It’s cool. It’s really cool.”

The other night, after a day of rehearsals at the Met, Tines was at the Blue Building in Manhattan to perform in “Art is Gay,” a night of song and dance hosted by Art Bath, a performance salon. He sang a contemporary version of the hymn “I’ll Fly Away” and an arrangement of a Bach cantata.

Before the show, as the performers were putting on makeup and costumes, Tines approached the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, who asked how he was faring with “El Niño.”

“Are you alive?” Costanzo said, embracing him.

“It was a long day,” Tines said. “I was at the Met from 9 to 5.” Costanzo snapped his fingers, and the two started singing Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5.”

Sitting on a couch at the Blue Building, Tines showed off his pearls, which he has collected while performing in Hong Kong, Germany, St. Louis and elsewhere.

As his Met debut approached, he said he was striving to be a “clear glass” — to make himself “as simple as possible, so that the largess and complexity of what you’re hoping to touch has the space to exist.”

“More so than ever,” he said, “I hope to leave people and myself with an experience that’s quite far beyond people or myself.”

Javier C. Hernández is a culture reporter, covering the world of classical music and dance in New York City and beyond. He joined The Times in 2008 and previously worked as a correspondent in Beijing and New York. More about Javier C. Hernández