American Exceptionalism
A Double-Edged Sword
6 August 1997
Description
Is America unique? One of our major political analysts explores the deeply held but often inarticulated beliefs that shape the American creed.
"American values are quite complex," writes Seymour Martin Lipset, "particularly because of paradoxes within our culture that permit pernicious and beneficial social phenomena to arise simultaneously from the same basic beliefs."
Born out of revolution, the United States has always considered itself an exceptional country of citizens unified by an allegiance to a common set of ideals, individualism, anti-statism, populism, and egalitarianism. This ideology, Professor Lipset observes, defines the limits of political debate in the United States and shapes our society.
American Exceptionalism explains why socialism has never taken hold in the United States, why Americans are resistant to absolute quotas as a way to integrate blacks and other minorities, and why American religion and foreign policy have a moralistic, crusading streak.
Born out of revolution, the United States has always considered itself an exceptional country of citizens unified by an allegiance to a common set of ideals, individualism, anti-statism, populism, and egalitarianism. This ideology, Professor Lipset observes, defines the limits of political debate in the United States and shapes our society.
American Exceptionalism explains why socialism has never taken hold in the United States, why Americans are resistant to absolute quotas as a way to integrate blacks and other minorities, and why American religion and foreign policy have a moralistic, crusading streak.
Reviews
"[A] magisterial attempt to distill a lifetime of learning about America into a persuasive brief . . . [by] the dean of American political sociologists." — Carlin Romano, Boston Globe
"Invariably perceptive and revealing." — The Economist
"An illuminating new book." — David Gergen, U.S. News & World Report
Also By: Seymour Martin Lipset 
It Didn't Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States
Paperback, 2001
"[T]his impressive work...offers paths toward new and rich understandings of American history."—The New York Times Book Review
The First New Nation: The United States in Historical and Comparative Perspective
Paperback, 1979
“One of the few most important books by an American sociologist to appear in a long time. . . .An impressive and very challenging book.” —Talcott Parsons, Journal of Sociology