Through the publishing of this blog, I have gotten to know Professor Da Hsuan Feng quite well. DH as some of his friends call him is a gentleman and a scholar with an impressive circle of friends. One of his friends Professor Shih Choon Fong (施春风) is a Singaporean who was the founding president of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). He also headed the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) and served on national-level committees including the Economic Review Committee, which formulated strategies for the re-making of Singapore.
Long story short, Choon Fong recently brought to our attention several articles and books on American Exceptionalism “sharing three articles I find interesting, insightful and thought-provoking … from the other side of the Pacific.” To Professor Shih’s list, I have also added Jeffrey Sachs’s recent book on the same subject.
- The article on America’s Jekyll-and-Hyde Exceptionalism by H H Koh, 2005 gives some insight into what America is, its Foreign Policy and what goes on behind the ostensibly just, righteous, generous and benevolent America. It is extracted from the book American Exceptionalism and Human Rights edited by Michael Ignatieff. The United States has been a driving force in promoting global human rights but is also reluctant to commit to the international laws and conventions that protect them. This important collection of essays by leading scholars seeks to explain this seeming paradox.
- The Myth of American Exceptionalism by Godfrey Hodgson, 2009. The idea that the United States is destined to spread its unique gifts of democracy and capitalism to other countries is dangerous for Americans and for the rest of the world, warns Godfrey Hodgson in this provocative book. Hodgson, a shrewd and highly respected British commentator, argues that America is not as exceptional as it would like to think; its blindness to its own history has bred a complacent nationalism and a disastrous foreign policy that has isolated and alienated it from the global community.
- The Myth of American Exceptionalism from Foreign Policy, 2011 by Stephen M. Walt. The idea that the United States is uniquely virtuous may be comforting to Americans. Too bad it’s not true. Over the last two centuries, prominent Americans have described the United States as an “empire of liberty,” a “shining city on a hill,” the “last best hope of Earth,” the “leader of the free world,” and the “indispensable nation.” These enduring tropes explain why all presidential candidates feel compelled to offer ritualistic paeans to America’s greatness and why President Barack Obama landed in hot water — most recently, from Mitt Romney — for saying that while he believed in “American exceptionalism,” it was no different from “British exceptionalism,” “Greek exceptionalism,” or any other country’s brand of patriotic chest-thumping.
- How the torch of empire passed from Britannia to America and The British have invaded 90% of the world’s countries. Ha ha?
- A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism – October 2, 2018 by Jeffrey D. Sachs. The American Century began in 1941 and ended on January 20, 2017. While the United States remains a military giant and is still an economic powerhouse, it no longer dominates the world economy or geopolitics as it once did. The current turn toward nationalism and “America first” unilateralism in foreign policy will not make America great. Instead, it represents the abdication of our responsibilities in the face of severe environmental threats, political upheaval, mass migration, and other global challenges.
America is the country we all call home. We are all very proud of our country but it is far from perfect. As I have written a fortnight ago, our “Democracy in our country is still “Young” and “Tenuous”, we are still a long way from the reality that “America is a shining city upon a hill“. It behooves us to be a little more humble and to redouble our efforts to live up to the standard that America is Exceptional.