American Exceptionalism

Volker Depkat

The idea that America is exceptional, whether because of its founding creed, natural abundance, or Protestant origins, has been the subject of fierce debate going back to the founding. Rather than argue for one side or the other, Volker Depkat explores the diverse ways in which Americans have described their country as exceptional. Describing how narratives of exceptionalism have never been a purely American affair, Depkat shows how, for example, European, African, and Asian immigrants projected their own dreams and nightmares onto the American screen, contributing to the intellectual construction of America. In fact, the different groups living in America have described American exceptionalism in such differing terms that there hardly ever was a shared understanding as to what these exceptional experiences were and how to interpret them. What has unified the disparate exceptionalist narratives, Depkat explains, is their insistence on America's universalist and future-oriented way of life. In engaging and lucid prose, Depkat offers general readers and students of American history an invaluable lens through which they can evaluate for themselves the merits of the many ways in which Americans have understood their country as exceptional.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 304 • Trim: 6½ x 9⅜

978-1-5381-0118-6 • Hardback • November 2021 • $49.00 • (£38.00)

978-1-5381-0119-3 • eBook • November 2021 • $46.50 • (£36.00)

Series: American Ways

Subjects: History / United States / General

American Exceptionalism

Hardback

eBook

Summary

The idea that America is exceptional, whether because of its founding creed, natural abundance, or Protestant origins, has been the subject of fierce debate going back to the founding. Rather than argue for one side or the other, Volker Depkat explores the diverse ways in which Americans have described their country as exceptional. Describing how narratives of exceptionalism have never been a purely American affair, Depkat shows how, for example, European, African, and Asian immigrants projected their own dreams and nightmares onto the American screen, contributing to the intellectual construction of America. In fact, the different groups living in America have described American exceptionalism in such differing terms that there hardly ever was a shared understanding as to what these exceptional experiences were and how to interpret them. What has unified the disparate exceptionalist narratives, Depkat explains, is their insistence on America's universalist and future-oriented way of life. In engaging and lucid prose, Depkat offers general readers and students of American history an invaluable lens through which they can evaluate for themselves the merits of the many ways in which Americans have understood their country as exceptional.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 304 • Trim: 6½ x 9⅜

978-1-5381-0118-6 • Hardback • November 2021 • $49.00 • (£38.00)

978-1-5381-0119-3 • eBook • November 2021 • $46.50 • (£36.00)

Series: American Ways

Subjects: History / United States / General

Author

Volker Depkat is a professor in the Department of British and American Studies at the University of Regensburg, Germany.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1 The American Land: Landscapes of Abundance, Wilderness, and Beauty
Chapter 2 The West and the South: Exceptional Regions and Regions of Exceptionalism
Chapter 3 Cities upon Hills: The Colonial Foundations of American Exceptionalism
Chapter 4 Sacred Fire of Liberty: The American Revolution and the Transformation of American Exceptionalism
Chapter 5 The American Way of Empire: Exceptionalism and U.S. Foreign Policy
Chapter 6 Promissory Notes: Exceptionalism and African American Self-Empowerment
Chapter 7 Perfectible Union: American Exceptionalism and Reform
Chapter 8 People of Plenty: American Exceptionalism and Affluence
Chapter 9 Crisis of Disorientation: Contested Exceptionalisms in Contemporary America
Bibliographical Essay
Index
About the Author

Reviews

This is a well-balanced, incisive account of what exceptionalism means to scholars, students, and general readers across the political spectrum. Depkat explores the concept’s origins and development and the reality that its meaning, which changes over time, depends on one’s political persuasion…. Depkat covers the span of American history, referencing both primary and secondary sources to create this forceful, insightful analysis of American exceptionalism, something that is more a dream for the future than simply an analysis of the past.Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals.

— Choice Reviews

Most Americans believe in the idea that their nation is not only different from other countries but that it occupies a unique place in the moral universe of world history. In this compelling and very readable book, Volker Depkat, one of the leading German historians of the United States, moves beyond the stale debates of the past and offers a concise account of how Americans – and Europeans – have imagined America as exceptional and how competing concepts of American Exceptionalism have shaped US history until today.

— Manfred Berg, Curt Engelhorn Professor of American History, Heidelberg University

With this magisterial synthesis of a vast range of source materials in which competing versions of this notion have been made to serve different, at times mutually exclusive, social, geographic, political economic, and cultural agendas, Volker Depkat has accomplished what I once thought impossible: a comprehensive, systematic, yet utterly accessible conceptual history of American exceptionalism from its colonial and revolutionary beginnings to the present.

— Donald E. Pease, professor of English, Director of the Futures of American Studies Institute at Dartmouth College, and author of The New American Excpetionalism

Volker Depkat's highly readable account of the conceptual workings and practices justified by exceptionalism expertly navigates centuries, shifting geographical boundaries, myriad types of sources and artistic works, as well as transnational and regional outlooks and experiences. Looping back and forth in time, thematically organized chapters drive home the fluidity of positive and negative exceptionalisms. This in‑depth study demonstrates why one person's new beginning was often another person's premature demise and why high‑flying hopes were frequently disappointed. American Exceptionalism, with its compact yet intricate chapters and its immensely useful bibliographical essay, is an asset for American Studies classes on competing conceptualizations of the US and for anyone interested in fathoming US history.

— Nassim W. Balestrini, University of Graz, Austria

Those who join the author on a journey through several centuries of history of American exceptionalism are richly rewarded intellectually. Depkat discerningly points to the central texts. Since the American idea of exceptionalism will continue to exist in the future, we do well to know its developmental history.

— H/Soz/Kult