America Through Foreign Eyes...

In this project, I will explore a few classic works written mostly by European political thinkers about America. The central issue will be the “rhetoric of America”, the question of American exceptionalism, and the roots of anti-Americanism. Over the past two centuries, visitors of the New World saw America as a prospect, a country whose historical development forewhadowed the fate of modern industrial society. And as some thinkers once put it, the institutions of the United States have always been considered to be a matter of more general interest than those of other nations in the world. These institutions represent “an experiment in the rule of multitude, tried on a scale unprecedently vast… And yet they are something more than an experiment, for they are believed to disclose and display the type of institutions toward which, by a law of fate, the rest of civilized mankind are forced to move.”

Is America the complete incarnation of the ideas of the Enlightment, a “postmodern” ideal situated beyond history, a source of spiritual decadence that threatens tradition? Or is it a source of rejuvenation for the rest of the world? Why are some people inclined to espouse various forms of anti-Americanism?  (to be continued…)