Abstract
Twelve years before the American Revolution began, John Adams described the founding moment of the American colonies as, “the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence.”1 Such sentiments are expressed in the chapter title quotation, which is written in Latin on the Great Seal of the United States. Since the founding of the Republic, Americans have expressed their self-identity through this grand narrative that began with the underlying belief that their nation was bestowed to them by God, and that they were “the Seed of Abraham.”2 Recently, the nineteenth rector of Christ’s Church in Philadelphia observed of the role the grand narrative played: “Whether or not the Bible is true …is insignificant …the Pilgrims, George Whitefield, even Benjamin Franklin…trusted the narrative. They believed God would deliver them. They never sank into the pure limitations of rationalism, that the world was only what they could perceive.” He follows with a flourish: “And because of them, that narrative became America’s narrative.”3
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Notes
John Adams, quoted in Bruce Feiler, America’s Prophet: Moses and the America Story (New York: William Morris, 2009), p. 60.
Madeleine Albright, The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (New York: Harper, 2006), p. 6.
Jeffrey M. Jones, “Americans See U.S. as Exceptional; 37% Doubt Obama Does,” Gallup Politics, December 22, 2010, http://www.gallup.com/poll/145358/americans-exceptional-doubt-obama.aspx
John A. Gans, Jr., “American Exceptionalism and the Politics of Foreign Policy,” November 21, 2011, 7:15 a.m., The Atlantic online. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/11/american-exceptional ism-and-the-politics-of-foreign-policy/248779/.
Andrew Kohut and Bruce Stokes, America against the World: How We Are Different and Why We Are Disliked (New York: Times Books, 2006), p. 96.
Hugh McCleod talks of the decrease of religiosity in the West during the 1960s in, The Religious Crises of the 1960s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)
Pew Poll, “Faith-Based Funding Backed, but Church-State Doubts Abound,” April 10, 2001, www.people-press.org/report/?pageid=115.
MSNBC.com Staff, “Devil in the Details: Santorum Hardly Alone in Belief in Satan,” February 22, 2012, 1:58 p.m., http://usnews.nbcnews.com/news/2012/02/22/10478701-devil-in-the-details-santorum-hardly-alone-in-belief-insatan?lite.
Josef Braml, quoted in “In the World of Good and Evil,” The Economist, September 14, 2006.
See discussion in Gary Weaver and Adam Mendelson, America’s Midlife Crisis: The Future of a Troubled Superpower (Boston, MA: Intercultural Press, 2008), p. 184.
James W. Ceaser, “The Origins and Character of American Exceptionalism,” American Political Thought 1, no. 1 (Spring 2012): 3–28.
Max Weber, “The Esthetic Sphere,” in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), pp. 342–349.
Alex de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 1 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), p. 316.
See the interesting discussion in Jon Meacham, American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation (New York: Random House, 2006), esp. chap. 1.
Andrew Preston, Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy (New York: Knopf, 2012), p. 321.
Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010), p. 541.
Garry Wills, Head and Heart: A History of Christianity in America (New York: Penguin, 2007), p. 3.
James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 4.
Walter McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776 (New York: Mariner Books, 1998), p. 20.
Much has been written over the years concerning America’s cyclical swing from isolationism, or Fortress America, to interventionism. For a good discussion of the two terms and their validity see Eric Nordlinger, Isolationism Reconfigured: American Foreign Policy for a New Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).
Walter McDougall, Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History, 1585–1828 (New York: Harper Perennial, 2005), p. 108.
Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America, 2nd ed. (New York: Mariner Books, 1991).
Michael Oren, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East; 1776 to the Present (New York: W. W. Norton, 2008), p. 85.
Woodrow Wilson, “Christ’s Army,” reprinted in Ronald J. Pestritto, ed., Woodrow Wilson: The Essential Political Writings (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005), pp. 71–72.
Andrew J. Rotter, “Christians, Muslims, and Hindus: Religion and US-South Asian Relations, 1947–1954,” Diplomatic History 24, no. 4 (December 2002): 593–613
Dianne Kirby, Religion and the Cold War (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 4.
Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World, (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 142. He notes the total is even higher if one includes 14 thousand Mormon missionaries not included in the 2000 census.
Samuel Adams, quoted in Ira Stoll, Samuel Adams: A Life (New York: Free Press, 2009), p. 187. Stoll’s biography of Samuel Adams emphasizes his religiosity, and his belief, widely held, that God shows favor on the rebelling colonies and would do so as long as Americans remained righteous.
Woodrow Wilson, quoted in John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), p. 583.
Josiah Strong, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (New York: Baker and Taylor Company, 1891), p. 225.
See also McDougall’s Promised Land, Crusader State; John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985).
James Oliver Robertson, American Myth, American Reality (New York: Hill and Wang, 1980).
One of the most important expressions of the neoconservative creed and American purpose in Iraq was Lawrence Kaplan and William Crystal’s The War Over Iraq: Saddam’s Tyranny and America’s Mission (San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books, 2003).
Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), p. 20.
John Shy, A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. x.
Russell Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1973), p. xxii.
Colin Gray, “The American Way of War: Critique and Implications,” in Anthony D. Mc Ivor, ed., Rethinking the Principles of War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005), pp. 13–40; quotations on pp. 23, 29.
John O’Sullivan, “Annexation,” Democratic Review 17 (July–August 1845): 5–10, quoted in Weaver and Mendelson, America’s Midlife Crisis, p. 93.
Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), esp. pp. 33–37.
See the discussion of the space frontier by Everett C. Dolman in his book, Astropolitik: Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age (Portland, OR: Frank Cass Publishers, 2001), esp. pp. 26–27. He observes of successful frontier societies that they are “risk-takers,” and are “dynamic individuals who are motivated, capable, and assured” (p. 26). This is particularly critical for pushing the space frontier, since: “Any mistake could mean death.” Thus, those that conquer the frontier will be “the best and the brightest” (p. 26).
Robert Kaplan, Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground (New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2005); COIN doctrine is JP 3–24, Counterinsurgency Operations (October 5, 2009).
Max Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 2002).
Woodrow Wilson, quoted in August Heckscher, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography (New York: Collier Books, 1991), p. 393.
See the in-depth study by John Mueller, Policy and Opinion in the Gulf War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994); quotation on p. 39.
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© 2013 Mary N. Hampton
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Hampton, M.N. (2013). “God Has Favored Our Undertaking”: Explaining American Security and Strategic Culture. In: A Thorn in Transatlantic Relations. Palgrave Studies in Governance, Security, and Development. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137343277_2
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