American Exceptionalism

American Exceptionalism
Volker Depkat
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NZ$ 130.99
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NZ$ 111.34
Hardback
h236 x 163mm - 304pg
15 Jan 2022 US
9781538101186
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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.

American Exceptionalism

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 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 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 is a professor in the Department of British and American Studies at the University of Regensburg, Germany.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9781538101186
Published: 15 Jan 2022
Published In: United States
Imprint: Rowman & Littlefield
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Format: Hardback
Height: 236mm
Width: 163mm
Spine: 22mm
Weight: 576g
Pages: 304

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