American exceptionalism

Progress of America, 1875, by Domenico Tojetti

American exceptionalism is the worldview that the United States occupies a special niche among the nations of the world[1] in terms of its national credo, political and religious institutions, and its being built by immigrants. The roots of the position are not clear, although some attribute it to a passage of Alexis de Tocqueville,[2][3] who opined that the then-50-year-old United States held a special place among nations, because it was the first working representative democracy.

Belief in American exceptionalism is more characteristic of conservatives than liberals. Howard Zinn and Godfrey Hodgson[4] said that it is based on a myth, and that "there is a growing refusal to accept" the idea of exceptionalism both nationally and internationally.[5] By contrast, conservative leader Mike Huckabee argues that "to deny American exceptionalism is in essence to deny the heart and soul of this nation."[6].

Contents

Overview

Historian Dorothy Ross discussed three currents in American exceptionalism:

  1. Protestant American Christians believed American progress would lead to the Christian Millenium."[7].
  2. American writers also linked their history to the development of liberty in Anglo Saxon England, even back to the traditions of the Teutonic tribes that conquered the western Roman empire[7].
  3. Other American writers looked to the "millenial newness" of America, seeing the mass of "virgin land" promised an escape from the decay that befell earlier republics[7].

The French writer Alexis de Tocqueville first wrote about it in his 1831 work Democracy in America:[8]

The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people.[9]

American exceptionalism is closely tied to the idea of Manifest Destiny,[10] a term used by Jacksonian Democrats in the 1840s to promote the acquisition of much of what is now the Western United States (the Oregon Territory, the Texas Annexation, the Gadsden Purchase, and the Mexican Cession).

A key theme is the claim that the United States and its people differ from other nations, at least on a historical basis, as an association of people who came from numerous places throughout the world but who hold a common bond in standing for certain self-evident truths, like freedom, inalienable natural and human rights, democracy, republicanism, the rule of law, civil liberty, civic virtue, the common good, fair play, private property, and Constitutional government.

Critics argue that it is equivalent to jingoism and nationalist propaganda.[11][12] In their arguments, they often compare the US to other countries that have claimed an exceptional nature or destiny. Examples in more recent times include the UK at the height of the British Empire, as well the USSR, France and Nazi Germany; while many historic empires such as Ancient Rome, China, the Spanish Empire and a wide range of minor kingdoms and tribes have also embraced exceptionalism. In each case, a basis was presented as to why the country was exceptional compared to all other countries, drawing upon circumstance, cultural background and mythos, and self-perceived national aims.

Causes in their historical context

In essence, it characterizes the course of American history as a "deliberate choice" of "freedom over tyranny" which was properly made. With this in mind, American exceptionalism is just one of many national exceptionalist movements.

Lack of feudalism

Many scholars adopted a model of American exceptionalism developed by Harvard political scientist Louis Hartz. In The Liberal Tradition in America (1955), Hartz argued that the American political tradition lacked the left-wing/socialist and right-wing/aristocratic elements that dominated in most other lands because colonial America lacked any feudal traditions, such as established churches, landed estates and an inherited nobility[13]. The "liberal consensus" school, typified by David Potter, Daniel Boorstin and Richard Hofstadter followed Hartz in emphasizing that political conflicts in American history remained within the tight boundaries of a liberal consensus regarding private property, individual rights, and representative government. The national government that emerged was far less centralized or nationalized as European counterparts[14].

Puritan roots

Many Puritans with Arminian leanings embraced a middle ground between strict Calvinist predestination and a less restricting theology of Divine Providence. They believed God had made a covenant with their people and had chosen them to lead the other nations of the Earth. One Puritan leader, John Winthrop, metaphorically expressed this idea as a "City upon a Hill" – that the Puritan community of New England should serve as a model community for the rest of the world.[15] This metaphor is often used by proponents of exceptionalism.

Although the world-view of New England Puritans changed dramatically, and despite the strong influence of other Protestant traditions in the Middle Colonies and the South, the Puritans' deep moralistic values remained part of the national identity of the United States for centuries, remaining influential to the present day. Parts of American exceptionalism can be traced to American Puritan roots. This theory does, however, ignore the fact that the earliest British colonies in North America (such as Virginia, which predates the colonization of New England) were not at all Puritan, and that most of the colonies and citizens thereof that were later absorbed in to the United States were essentially mainstream Protestant and Roman Catholic. It also tends to overlook the fact that the original Puritan colony all-but failed in its first two years, and was forced to admit mass numbers of colonists who were not motivated by any strong religious feelings whatsoever. But, despite their comparative statistical importance, the 'Puritan Roots' of America have become an important, unquestionable, almost sacrosanct part of the American Myth.

American Revolution and Republicanism

The ideas that created the American Revolution were derived from a tradition of republicanism that had been repudiated by the British mainstream. Thomas Paine's Common Sense for the first time expressed the belief that America was not just an extension of Europe but a new land, a country of nearly unlimited potential and opportunity that had outgrown the British mother country.[16] These sentiments laid the intellectual foundations for the Revolutionary concept of American exceptionalism and were closely tied to republicanism, the belief that sovereignty belonged to the people, not to a hereditary ruling class.[17]

Alexis de Tocqueville stressed the advanced nature of democracy in America, arguing that it infused every aspect of society and culture, at a time (1830s) when democracy was not in fashion anywhere else.[18]

Immigration

One of Alexis de Toqueville's original arguments for American exceptionalism still stands; America remains particularly attractive to immigrants because of its perceived economic and political opportunities. Since its founding, many immigrants, such as Andrew Carnegie and Carl Schurz have risen to the top layers of the economic and political system. The "American Dream" describes the perceived abundance of opportunities in the American system.

The United States has the largest population of immigrants in the world – over 38.5 million people living in the United States are first-generation immigrants.[19] On an annual basis, the United States naturalizes approximately 898,000 immigrants as new citizens, the most of any country in the world.[20] From 1960 to 2005, the United States was ranked first in the world for every five year period but one for the total number of immigrants admitted – overall, since 1995, the United States has admitted over 1 million immigrants per year.[21] Of the top ten countries accepting resettled refugees in 2006, the United States accepted more than twice as many as the next nine countries combined, approximately 50,000 refugees; in addition, on average, over 100,000 refugees per year were resettled annually between 1990 and 2000; further, over 85,000 asylum seekers annually come to the United States in search of sanctuary, of which approximately 45% are successful in obtaining.

Critics point out that America is now hardly unique in its appeal to immigrants, and that many countries like Australia, Canada and New Zealand are at least as popular and welcoming to immigrants.[22]

American Communism

In 1927 Jay Lovestone, leader of the Communist Party in America, defined American exceptionalism as the increasing strength of American capitalism, a strength which he said prevented Communist revolution.[23] In 1929, Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin, unwilling to believe that America was so resistant to revolution, called Lovestone's ideas "the heresy of American exceptionalism."[24] In the 1930s, academicians in the U.S. redefined American exceptionalism as befitting a nation that was to lead the world, with the U.S. to serve the older European societies as an example of a liberated future free from Marxism and socialism.[24] More recently, socialists and other writers have tried to discover or describe this exceptionalism of the U.S. within and outside its borders.[25]

Cold War

American exceptionalism became evident during the Cold War when the American Way of Life engaged in a battle against totalitarianism, led by the Soviet Union. These attributions made use of the residual sentiment that had originally formed to differentiate the United States from the 19th century European powers and had been applied multiple times in multiple contexts before it was used to distinguish democracies (with the United States primus inter pares of the democracies) from authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorship.

Aspects of arguments

Republican ethos and ideas about nationhood

Proponents of American exceptionalism argue that the United States is exceptional in that it was founded on a set of republican ideals, rather than on a common heritage, ethnicity, or ruling elite. In the formulation of President Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address, America is a nation "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal". In this view, America is inextricably connected with liberty and equality.

The United States' policies have been characterized since their inception by a system of federalism and checks and balances, which were designed to prevent any person, faction, region, or government organ from becoming too powerful. Some Proponents of the theory of American exceptionalism argue that this system and the accompanying distrust of concentrated power prevent the United States from suffering a "tyranny of the majority", are preservative a free republican democrat, and also that it allows citizens to live in a locality whose laws reflect that citizen's values. A consequence of this political system is that laws can vary greatly across the country. Critics of American exceptionalism maintain that this system merely replaces the power of the national majority over states with power by the states over local entities. On balance, the American political system arguably allows more local dominance but prevents more national dominance than does a more unitary system.

Frontier spirit

Proponents of American exceptionalism often claim that the "American spirit" or the "American identity" was created at the frontier (following Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis), where rugged and untamed conditions gave birth to American national vitality. However, this 'frontier spirit' was not unique to the United States – other nations such as New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina and Australia had long frontiers that were similarly settled by pioneers, shaping their national psyches. In fact, all of the British Imperial domains involved pioneering work. Although each nation had slightly different frontier experiences (for example, in Australia "mateship" and working together was valued more than individualism was in the United States), the characteristics arising from British attempting to "tame" a wild and often hostile landscape against the will of the original population remained common to many such nations. Of course, at the limit, all of mankind has been involved, at one time or another, in extending the boundaries of their territory.

Mobility

For most of its history, especially from the mid-19th to early 20th centuries, the United States has been known as the "land of opportunity", and in this sense, it prided and promoted itself on providing individuals with the opportunity to escape from the contexts of their class and family background. Examples of this social mobility include:

However, social mobility in the US is also now significantly lower than in a number of European Union countries. American men born into the lowest income quintile are much more likely to stay there compared to similar men in the Nordic countries or the United Kingdom.[26]

Further information: Economic mobility, Social mobility

American Revolution

The American Revolutionary War is the claimed ideological territory of "exceptionalists". The intellectuals of the Revolution, such as Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, arguably shaped America into a nation fundamentally different from its European ancestry, creating modern constitutional republicanism, with a limit on ecclesiastical powers. Others counter that there is nothing unique about the revolution – the English "Glorious Revolution" was nearly a century prior to the American Revolution and led to constitutional monarchy. The French Revolution also led to a form of modern democracy and has been credited as the process that forged most contemporary ideals of government and democracy.

Opposing viewpoints

During the George W. Bush administration, the term was somewhat abstracted from its historical context. Proponents and opponents alike began using it to describe a phenomenon wherein certain political interests view the United States as being "above" or an "exception" to the law, specifically the Law of Nations.[27] (This phenomenon might be called a priori exceptionalism or "neoexceptionalism," since it is less concerned with justifying American uniqueness than with asserting its immunity to international law.) This new use of the term has served to confuse the topic and muddy the waters, since its unilateralist emphasis and ahistorical orientation diverge somewhat from older uses of the term. A certain number of those who subscribe to "old-style" or "traditional American exceptionalism" (or, in keeping with the distinction suggested above, a posteriori exceptionalism) – the idea that America is a more unique nation than are others, that it differs qualitatively from the rest of the world and has a special role to play in world history – also agree that the United States is and ought to be fully subject to and bound by the public international law. Indeed, recent research shows that "there is some indication for American exceptionalism among the [U.S.] public, but very little evidence of unilateral attitudes."[2]

In April 2009, President Barack Obama responded to a journalist's question in Strasbourg with the statement, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."[28]

Ignorance of aspects

Critics on the left, such as Howard Zinn in A People's History of the United States (1980 and later editions) have argued that American history is so immorally flawed that it cannot be an exemplar of virtue[29].

American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr argued that the automatic assumption that America acts for the good will bring about moral corruption. After the second world war, Niebuhr repeated his claim by focusing on the immoral nature of the atomic bomb and the irony that such an immoral weapon was used by a nation claiming the moral high ground over communism.[30]

Critics say that for every one feature of America, some other country shares it. Proponents reply that the historical uniqueness of the United States is the result of a combination of many factors and not captured by particular aspects of the national character. Opponents, however, argue that the national character-resulting from all of its components-of each and every nation on earth is unique.

Canadian and American politics and economies compared explores this issue by contrast to the most similar nation, on the same continent, with a quite different history.

Double standards

U.S. historians like Thomas Bender "try and put an end to the recent revival of American exceptionalism, a defect he esteems to be inherited from the Cold War".[31] Gary W. Reichard and Ted Dickson argue "how the development of the United States has always depended on its transactions with other nations for commodities, cultural values and populations".[32] Roger Cohen asks, "How exceptional can you be when every major problem you face, from terrorism to nuclear proliferation to gas prices, requires joint action?"[33] Harold Koh distinguishes "distinctive rights, different labels, the 'flying buttress' mentality, and double standards. (...) [T]he fourth face – double standards – presents the most dangerous and destructive form of American exceptionalism."[34] Godfrey Hodgson also concludes that "the US national myth is dangerous."[35] Samantha Power asserts that "we're neither the shining example, nor even competent meddlers. It's going to take a generation or so to reclaim American exceptionalism."[36]

The Americanist heresy

Pope Leo XIII, who denounced what he deemed to be the heresy of americanism in the encyclical Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae,[37] was probably (?) referring to American exceptionalism in the ecclesiastical domain, when it is specifically applied to the teachings of Christianity and the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.[38] At the end of the 19th century, there was definitely a tendency among the Roman Catholic clergy in the United States to view American society as inherently different from other Christian nations and societies, and to argue that the entire understanding of Church doctrine had to be redrawn in order to meet the requirements of what is known as the American experience, which supposedly included greater individualism, civil rights, the inheritance of the American revolution, Anglo-Saxon cultural traditions, Anglo-American analytical philosophy, economic liberalism, political reformism and egalitarianism, and Church-State separation.

Pre-emptive declinism

New York Times critic Nicolai Ouroussoff calls America "an empire enthralled with its own power and unaware that it is fading."[39] Former Clinton administration official Charles Kupchan concludes that "American primacy is already past its peak."[40] According to Joseph Nye, who served under Presidents Carter and Clinton, America's "soft power – its ability to attract others by the legitimacy of U.S. policies and the values that underlie them – is in decline."[40]

Ivan Eland of the Independent Institute warns that America's military "overextension could hasten the decline of the United States as a superpower."[41]

Matthew Parris of the London Sunday Times reports that the United States is "overstretched," romantically recalling the Kennedy presidency, when "America had the best arguments" and could use moral persuasion rather than force to have its way in the world. From his vantage point in Shanghai, the International Herald Tribune's Howard French worries about "the declining moral influence of the United States" over an emergent China.[42]

CEPA Director of Research Wess Mitchell says: "With a declining United States, struggling Europe, and resurgent Russia, the unfolding Euro-Atlantic power triangle is a microcosm of the multipolar order ahead."[43]

In his book, '"The Post-American World", Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria refers to a "Post-American world" that he says, "is not about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else."[44]

In 2004, Pat Buchanan lamented "the decline and fall of the greatest industrial republic the world had ever seen." In 2005, The Guardian's Polly Toynbee concluded that Hurricane Katrina exposed "a hollow superpower". In 2007, Pierre Hassner of the Paris-based National Foundation for Political Science declared, "It will not be the New American Century."[45] In 1988, Flora Lewis sighed that "Talk of U.S. decline is real in the sense that the U.S. can no longer pull all the levers of command or pay all the bills." Even in trying to deflect the declinists, James Schlesinger conceded in 1988 that the U.S. was "no longer economically the preponderant power... no longer militarily the dominant power... no longer can achieve more or less whatever it desires." "The signs of decline are evident to those who care to see them," declared Peter Passell in 1990, noting that the U.S. had lost its competitive edge and was losing its battle with the Japanese juggernaut. "Europeans and Asians," wrote Anthony Lewis in 1990, "are already finding confirmation of their suspicion that the United States is in decline." Citing America's dependence on foreign sources for energy and "crucial weaknesses" in the military, Tom Wicker concluded "that maintaining superpower status is becoming more difficult – nearly impossible – for the United States."[42]

Similarities between the United States and Europe

In December 2009, historian Peter Baldwin published a book arguing that, despite widespread comparisons between the 'American way of life' and the 'European social model', America and Europe are actually very similar on a number of social and economic indices. Baldwin claimed that the black underclass accounts for many of those few areas where a stark difference exists between the US and Europe, such as homicide and child poverty.[46] However, critics alleged that some of Baldwin's evidence actually supports the stereotype of a distinctive American model: a free-market system with little labour protection, an adversarial legal system, high murder rates, high rates of gun ownership, a large prison population, inequitable and expensive health care, and relatively widespread poverty.[47]

Unsustainable fiscal path

Both from a budget deficit and trade deficit standpoint, it is argued that the U.S. is unwilling to live within its means. For example, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Federal Government's auditor, argues that the U.S. is on a fiscally "unsustainable" path and that politicians and the electorate have been unwilling to change this path.[48] The 2010 U.S. budget indicates annual debt increases of nearly $1 trillion annually through 2019, with an unprecedented $1.0 trillion debt increase in 2009. By 2019 the U.S. national debt is projected to be $18.4 trillion.[49] Further, the subprime mortgage crisis has significantly increased the financial burden on the U.S. government, with over $10 trillion in commitments or guarantees and $2.6 trillion in investments or expenditures as of May 2009, only some of which are included in the budget document.[50] The U.S. also has a large trade deficit, meaning imports exceed exports. Financing these deficits requires the USA to borrow large sums from abroad, much of it from countries running trade surpluses, mainly the emerging economies in Asia and oil-exporting nations. The balance of payments identity requires that a country (such as the USA) running a current account deficit also have a capital account (investment) surplus of the same amount. In 2005, Ben Bernanke addressed the implications of the USA's high and rising current account (trade) deficit, resulting from USA imports exceeding its exports. Between 1996 and 2004, the USA current account deficit increased by $650 billion, from 1.5% to 5.8% of GDP.[51]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ [1]
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 http://www.politikwissenschaft.tu-darmstadt.de/fileadmin/pg/Sektionstagung_IB/Thimm-American_exceptionalism.pdf
  3. ↑ "Understanding American Exceptionalism". American.com. http://www.american.com/archive/2008/april-04-08/understanding-american-exceptionalism. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 
  4. ↑ Cohen, Roger. "America Unmasked". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/books/review/Cohen-t.html. 
  5. ↑ Zinn, Howard (Summer 2005). "The Power and the Glory: Myths of American exceptionalism". Boston Review. http://www.bostonreview.net/BR30.3/zinn.php. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 
  6. ↑ "The new battle: What it means to be American," Politico
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Dorothy Ross (1991). Origins of American Social Science.  p 23.
  8. ↑ Foreword: on American Exceptionalism; Symposium on Treaties, Enforcement, and U.S. Sovereignty, Stanford Law Review, May 1, 2003, Pg. 1479
  9. ↑ Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vintage Books, 1945
  10. ↑ February 15, 2007, NYT Manifest Destiny: A New Direction
  11. ↑ Howard Zinn. "The Myth of American Exceptionalism". http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/258/. Retrieved 2007-10-21. 
  12. ↑ Jacobs, Ron (2004-07-21). "American Exceptionalism: A Disease of Conceit". CounterPunch. http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs07212004.html. Retrieved 2007-06-13. 
  13. ↑ Catherine A. Holland, "Hartz and Minds: The Liberal Tradition after the Cold War," Studies in American Political Development, Oct 2005, Vol. 19 Issue 2, pp 227-233
  14. ↑ Gary Cross, "Comparative Exceptionalism: Rethinking the Hartz Thesis in the Settler Societies of Nineteenth-Century United States and Australia," Australasian Journal of American Studies, 1995, Vol. 14 Issue 1, pp 15-41
  15. ↑ The Hanover Historical Texts Project, ed (August 1996). "John Winthrop, A Modell of Christian Charity(1630)". Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston, 1838), 3rd series 7:31–48.). http://history.hanover.edu/texts/winthmod.html. Retrieved 13 March 2010. 
  16. ↑ Paine, Thomas. "Thomas Paine's Common Sense". In Don Vitale,. Archiving Early America 14 February 1776. http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/commonsense/text.html. Retrieved 13 March 2010. 
  17. ↑ New World Encyclopedia contributors. "American exceptionalism". New World Encyclopedia.. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/American_exceptionalism?oldid=849917. Retrieved 13 March 2010. 
  18. ↑ Thimm, Johannes. "American Exceptionalism – Conceptual Thoughts and Empirical Evidence". http://www.politikwissenschaft.tu-darmstadt.de/fileadmin/pg/Sektionstagung_IB/Thimm-American_exceptionalism.pdf. Retrieved 13 March 2010. 
  19. ↑ "Number of immigrants (most recent) by country". http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/imm_imm_pop_num_of_imm-immigration-immigrant-population-number-immigrants. Retrieved 2009-01-03. 
  20. ↑ "New citizenships (total) (most recent) by country". http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/imm_new_cit-immigration-new-citizenships. Retrieved 2009-01-03. 
  21. ↑ "Net migration - United States (historical data)". http://www.nationmaster.com/time.php?stat=imm_net_mig-immigration-net-migration&country=us-united-states. Retrieved 2009-01-03. 
  22. ↑ "Migration to European Countries. A Structural Explanation of Patterns, 1980–2004". http://www.kuleuven.be/citizenship/_data/MigrationPatterns.pdf. Retrieved 2008-05-30. 
  23. ↑ Fried, Albert. Communism in America: a history in documents, pp. 7–8, 19, 82–92. Columbia University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-231-10235-6
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Pease, Donald E. Editors: Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. "Exceptionalism", pp. 108–112, in "Keywords for American Cultural Studies. NYU Press, 2007. ISBN 0-8147-9948-5
  25. ↑ American Exceptionalism – Washington Post
  26. ↑ De Grauwe, Paul (2 July 2007). "Structural rigidities in the US and Europe". http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/338. Retrieved 1 January 2010. 
  27. ↑ Frel, Jan (2006-07-10). "Could Bush Be Prosecuted for War Crimes?". AlterNet. http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/38604/. Retrieved 2008-05-17. 
  28. ↑ "Squanderer in chief". Los Angeles Times. 2009-04-28. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-kirchick28-2009apr28,0,4218519.story. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 
  29. ↑ Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (1980)
  30. ↑ Niebuhr, Reinhold (1952). The Irony of American History. Charles Scribner's Sons. 
  31. ↑ "Index of /wp". Gilderlehrman.org. http://www.gilderlehrman.org/wp/?p=307. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 
  32. ↑ Reichard, Gary W.; Ted Dickson. America on the World Stage, University of Illinois Press, 2008, back cover. ISBN 0-252-07552-8
  33. ↑ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/24/opinion/edcohen.php?pass=true
  34. ↑ Koh, Harold Hongju (May 2003). "Foreword: On American Exceptionalism work=Stanford Law Review". The Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University. http://web.pdx.edu/~kinsella/ps448/koh.html. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 
  35. ↑ "Book review: The Myth of American Exceptionalism". The Atlantic. 2009-03-18. http://clivecrook.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/03/book_review_the_myth_of_americ.php. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 
  36. ↑ Hirsh, Michael (2009-01-21). "No Time to Go Wobbly, Barack". Washingtonmonthly.com. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0704.hirsh.html. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 
  37. ↑ "Library : Americanism, Then and Now: Our Pet Heresy". Catholic Culture. http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=7630&CFID=11811177&CFTOKEN=51286733. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 
  38. ↑ "The Heresy of Americanism: Response to Radical Traditionalists". Bringyou.to. http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p22.htm. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 
  39. ↑ Ouroussoff, Nicolai (June 30, 2005). "Appraisal:Fear in a soaring tower". America (The New York Times): p. 2. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/29/world/americas/29iht-critic.html?pagewanted=2. Retrieved March 7, 2010. 
  40. ↑ 40.0 40.1 Sibley, Robert (August 2, 2008). "Beware false prophets". Ottawa Citizen (CanWest MediaWorks Publications). http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/observer/story.html?id=0412505e-99d6-495f-a117-0d98ee273d3a. Retrieved 7 March 2010. 
  41. ↑ Eland, Ivan (November 26, 2002). "The Empire Strikes Out: The 'New Imperialism' and Its Fatal Flaws". Policy Analysis. CATO Institute. http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa459.pdf. Retrieved April 27, 2010. 
  42. ↑ 42.0 42.1 "Three Centuries of American Declinism". RealClearPolitics. 2007-08-27. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/declinism.html. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 
  43. ↑ "The Mice that Roared: Central Europe Is Reshaping Global Politics". Spiegel.de. http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,610019,00.html. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 
  44. ↑ Zakaria, Fareed, "The Post-American World". W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0670082292
  45. ↑ "The Decline and Fall of Declinism". American.com. http://www.american.com/archive/2007/august-0807/the-decline-and-fall-of-declinism. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 
  46. ↑ Lloyd, John (20 December 2009). "Financial Times". Martian myths that flatter Europe. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/81ba6ffa-ed90-11de-ba12-00144feab49a,s01=1.html. Retrieved 1 January 2010. 
  47. ↑ Moravcsik, Andrew (January–February 2010). "The Narcissism of Minor Differences – Book Review". Foreign Affairs 1 (89). http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65853/peter-baldwin/the-narcissism-of-minor-differences-how-america-and-europe-are-a. 
  48. ↑ Citizen's Guide 2008
  49. ↑ 2010 Budget-Schedule S-14
  50. ↑ CNN Bailout Tracker
  51. ↑ "Bernanke-The Global Saving Glut and U.S. Current Account Deficit". Federalreserve.gov. http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2005/20050414/default.htm. Retrieved 2009-02-27. 

Further reading

External links