American Exceptionalism An Idea that Made a Nation and Remade the World

Restad's book sheds new light by making a very substantial contribution to the literature on American exceptionalism and its role in shaping US foreign policy. Restad (Bjorknes College, Norway) challenges the traditional assumptions of US foreign policy experts that the US should either withdraw from the world like an isolated but inspiring "city upon a hill" or actively lead the rest of the world. --K. M. Zaarour, Shaw University CHOICE

"Hilde Eliassen Restad has accomplished a difficult and important task in reviewing exceptionalism's centrality in the American self-understanding. ... Restad, a Norwegian scholar and teacher trained in the United States, uses her unique background to bring a fresh perspective to exceptionalism and American foreign policy. As an outsider who knows America well, she places the nation's experience in its wider international context and never takes for granted the truth of conventional stories trapped by a priori scholarly commitments to cycles, periods, breaks, and "turnarounds." One of the book's most commendable features is its success in forcing readers to engage its argument. This is a book to wrestle with, a book far from bland theorizing." -- Richard Gamble, Professor of History, Anna Margaret Ross Alexander Chair in History and Political Science at Hillsdale College

"In American exceptionalism, Hilde Restad provides a tightly argued and provocative overview of America's sense of self. ... Hilde Restad is, if anything, bold to seek an ideational study of exceptionalism amid the mine-strewn landscape of the ongoing American culture wars." -- Asle Toje, Director of Research at the Nobel Institute, writes in International Affairs