American exceptionalism

itself politically on the international stage. Reluctant to enter World War I (WWI), the United States had, by the war’s end, assumed a lead role negotiating the Treaty of Versailles. President Woodrow Wilson hoped to use the negotiations to promote American ideals of democracy and free trade while securing a lasting peace. However, instead of fostering global economic and political stability, the Versailles accord produced a punitive settlement that slowed post-war recovery. Following the…

American Foreign Policy Foreign policy, whether you realize it or not, is at the center of American culture, and effects everyone currently living in the United States. Foreign policy decisions shape the course of this country, and in turn, affect American lives in the process. Everyone has their own idea of how the United States should deal with international disputes, and these beliefs stem from a couple of different sentiments that evolved over the last 300 or so years. Joyce Kaufman, Walter…

Empire of Bases: Good or Bad? American exceptionalism is the belief “that the United States is different, better, and morally superior to the rest of the world” (Layne, 142). It also implies that the United States is both destined and entitled to play a distinct and positive role on the world stage. In essence, exceptionalism is a popular ideal held by many Americans, but is it practical? In this paper, I will be arguing on the impracticality of American exceptionalism. I will discuss how the…

States, “American Exceptionalism” has served as a guiding principle for individuals seeking to lead this country. Second only to an Anglo belief in god, a solid―if often tenuous―insistence in our benevolent and altruistic superiority over all other countries and cultures seems compulsory for the high office. But what is so exceptional about America and why is it such a fundamental underpinning of the American ethos and its political fabric? “In its classic forms, American exceptionalism refers…

others, Americans often believe that their culture is somehow richer than of those on the other side of the World – regardless of how advanced a nation is in the first place. But “exceptionalism” – as it has come to be known – does not appear in a day to night fashion. As a very contentious theme, exceptionalism needs to be explored and have its origins analyzed in order to further understand the conception of “cultural superiority” amongst Americans. In The Myth American Exceptionalism, Stephan…

America has made a mistake. The United States has made mistakes, and we admit to that. However, we have always tried to make it right and put people’s safety first. Americans today seem to think that American Exceptionalism should not exist at all, that America is no better than anybody else. This is simply not true. American Exceptionalism does not mean that the United States is better than any other country, it merely means that America is the exception. The world has been plagued with…

nations of the world face. America is special. America is exceptional… at least, that is what its population thinks. Americans, for the most part, love America. They buy into the idea of American exceptionalism, believing that America is different from the rest of the world and that the opportunities available in America are not available anywhere else, however, in all of this exceptionalism, the truth is lost. According to research from the Center for Poverty Research at the University of…

heretics: Roger Williams, a founder of Providence, Rhode Island, and Anne Hutchinson, the earliest preacher of a theory of the "Jesus is my personal savior" of American Protestantism. Without the some of the theological disputes of the Massachusetts Bay Puritans, the modern-day America would not have the same prospects. American exceptionalism takes on a huge role in The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell. The recognition is that if the Puritans were chosen by God, they would also be punished by…

the negative aspect of meat, in which cholesterol leads to heart disease, and they choose to only focus on the positive: that meat gives protein. This ties in with the construct American Exceptionalism. As Robert R.Tome’s writes in his publication American Exceptionalism in the Twenty-First Century, American Exceptionalism is the ideology that implies: the United States is an exceptional country through its…

In Thomas Hietala’s book, Manifest Design: American Exceptionalism and Empire, is an excellently written and researched analysis of the political economy of America in the 1840’s as well as the political and social ramifications of expansion. Though the majority of the book focuses on the annexation of Texas, as well as the Democrats disagreement about what should be done if or when we do expand, particularly in Texas. By providing a revisionist approach to the prior knowledge on the period of…