American exceptionalism

American exceptionalism is the belief that the United States has a distinctive national character, historical path, or mission setting it apart from other nations.

John Winthrop: John Winthrop was a Puritan leader and governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His 1630 sermon described the colony as a model community watched by the world.
Manifest destiny: Manifest destiny was the nineteenth-century belief that the United States was destined to expand across North America. It turned claims of national purpose into a rationale for continental expansion.
American anti-imperialism: American anti-imperialism is opposition to the United States acquiring or exercising imperial power. It contests the idea that national mission justifies expanding American control abroad.
American foreign policy: American foreign policy is the set of strategies and actions through which the United States conducts relations with other countries. Leaders have used exceptionalist language to justify both international leadership and restraint.
City upon a hill: A biblical image for a community whose conduct is visible to the world. Winthrop’s phrase became a lasting source for claims of American moral example.
American civil religion: American civil religion is the use of religious language and symbols to express shared national ideals. It gives exceptionalist claims sacred imagery, rituals, and a language of national purpose.
American anti-Americanism: American anti-Americanism is opposition or hostility toward the United States, its policies, or its cultural influence. External criticism often rejects claims that American power represents universal ideals.
American interventionism: American interventionism is the practice of using United States power to influence events abroad. A belief in a special national mission can make intervention seem morally necessary.
American Revolution: The American Revolution was the thirteen colonies’ struggle for independence from Great Britain, ending in the creation of the United States. Revolutionary claims about liberty and popular sovereignty supplied a founding account of national distinctiveness.
American identity: American identity is the evolving sense of shared belonging and national character in the United States. Exceptionalism is one influential account of what makes that identity distinctive.

Linked from 39 pages