American Exceptionalism Revisited provides a broad overview of the various features that signify American politics. These include the upholding of an exceptional political stability, involving a particular balance between legislative, executive and judicial powers, and the permanence of a unique party system. Furthermore, special traits in the electoral realm?e.g., voter turnout, the inflow of money, and the application of primaries?are targets of analysis. Through comparisons with conditions applying abroad, particularly in Europe and Latin America, Axel Hadenius reveals a number of new insights on American political life, both today and over time

Since colonial times, Americans have viewed themselves as distinct from the inhabitants of other lands. Today, many still do: relishing a sense of their uniqueness more than ever, upholding the superiority of their democratic ideals and the vitality of their economic system. In an era of globalization and postmodernity, meanwhile, scholarly discussion of American Exceptionalism among historians, sociologists, political scientists and literary and cultural critics has continued to pursue new directions. This issue of The Dolphin assesses the state of Exceptionalist debate at the close of what Henry Luce dubbed Aethe American CenturyAe. Some of the essays revisit well-established expressions of Exceptionalism in American cultural history, while others draw on recent work in newer academic fields, including feminist and African-American studies, to develop or revise Exceptionalist discourses. Still others examine the concept in little-studied contexts, connecting it with such phenomena as judicial activism, regionalism and the Information Age. Embracing critical and sympathetic viewpoints alike, Marks of Distinction combines new scholarship from both sides of the Atlantic for an up-to-date survey of Exceptionalism, one of the most long-standing concerns of American Studies, from its origins to the present.

When looking at the US from a European perspective a sort of paradox immediately emerges. On the one hand, the ‘American way of life’ has been penetrating in depth our everyday life and, even more, our Western culture through the music, the movies, the literature and all possible consumerist habits. But, on the other hand, all recurrent statements have been emphasizing the ‘American exceptionalism’ of political institutions, that is, how different and distant the North American institutions are from the European ones with regards to the government leadership, the relationships between existing powers, the connections with the citizens and even the very notion of democracy. This book will not analyze the reasons of such exceptionalism. It addresses a more salient and up to date question: how much exceptionalism is today still present if we compare US democratic institutions to the European ones? In other words, has there been a convergence or are the differences still very strong and accentuated? And if there has been convergence, in what directions? Or if resilient divergences, on what aspects? Moreover, how to explain the convergence, if there has been one?

Introduction: The Peculiar Tale of American Exceptionalism -- The Puritans and American Chosenness -- Looking Back, Looking Forward: Remembering the Revolution -- Cultural Nationalism and the Origins of American Exceptionalism -- Lyman Beecher, Personal Identity, and the Christian Republic -- Women and Exceptionalism: The Self-Made Woman and the Power of Catharine Beecher -- Race, Anglo-Saxonism, and Manifest Destiny -- In the Hands of an Angry God: The Antislavery Jeremiad and the Origins of the Christian Nation -- Fin de Siècle Challenges: The Frontier, Labor, and American Imperialism -- Two Isms: Americanism and Socialism -- The Dream and the Century: The Liberal Exceptionalism of the New Deal State, 1930s-1960s -- The Newly Chosen Nation: Exceptionalism from Reagan to Trump.

American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam examines the influence of the belief in American exceptionalism on the history of U.S. foreign policy since the Vietnam War. Trevor B. McCrisken analyzes attempts by each post-Vietnam U.S. administration to revive the popular belief in exceptionalism both rhetorically and by pursuing foreign policy supposedly grounded in traditional American principles. He argues that exceptionalism consistently provided the framework for foreign policy discourse but that the conduct of foreign affairs was limited by the Vietnam syndrome.

American Exceptionalism Revisited provides a broad overview of the various features that signify American politics. These include the upholding of an exceptional political stability, involving a particular balance between legislative, executive and judicial powers, and the permanence of a unique party system. Furthermore, special traits in the electoral realm?e.g., voter turnout, the inflow of money, and the application of primaries?are targets of analysis. Through comparisons with conditions applying abroad, particularly in Europe and Latin America, Axel Hadenius reveals a number of new insights on American political life, both today and over time