American Exceptionalism: A Double Edged Sword - Hardcover

Lipset, Seymour Martin

3.49

112 ratings by Goodreads

9780735100268: American Exceptionalism: A Double Edged Sword

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0735100268 ISBN 13: 9780735100268

Publisher: Replica Books, 1998

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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.

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Review:

An illuminating new book. -- David Gergen

An illuminating new book.--David Gergen

Invariably perceptive and revealing.

An illuminating new book. --David Gergen

An illuminating new book. --David Gergen"

Invariably perceptive and revealing. "

[A] magisterial attempt to distill a lifetime of learning about America into a persuasive brief . . . [by] the dean of American political sociologists.--Carlin Romano

About the Author:

Seymour Martin Lipset is the Hazel Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University and a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

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