194:. American exceptionalism, as defined by Jentleson, is a theory that holds that the United States possesses an inherent uniqueness and "special virtue" that is rooted in American principles and can be traced throughout American history. The idea that the United States is exceptional, or extraordinary, simply because it is the United States is a political philosophy that has been in existence for several decades and is a leading contributor to contemporary American political culture. (See
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Though Gat acknowledges that the victory of democracy over totalitarianism was not necessarily "preordained" at the outset of either World War, he goes on to remark that the sheer fact that the US existed gave liberal democracies their "edge" in the battle against totalitarian regimes. This was
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In the view of the United States factor, this "end of history" is made possible only because the US was in a unique space economically, geographically, politically, and militarily throughout the 20th century that made it possible for the United States to "rescue" the
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There are many other ideas as to the behaviors of states and how they react and interact in the world. Such views that provide alternate theories to
American exceptionalism and the United States factor include
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achieved mainly by the US's contributions to the
European Allies' war efforts from a distant location that was geographically large and politically united.
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as the "end of history" in which the ideological evolution and the universalization of
Western liberal democracy the final form of human government." (See
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The 20th century did appear to witness what many theorists have seen as the end of the battles of political ideology, with the political model of
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is a view of modern history that promotes the United States as the contingent reason for the Allied Powers winning both
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and for preventing any powerful rival political regime from becoming mainstream in the 21st century world.
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This is a view of modern history that fits within the political theory of
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American
Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century
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History of the foreign relations of the United States
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100:December 2011
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338:Categories
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123:Background
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70:newspapers
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232:Footnotes
164:Old World
40:talk page
314:(2010).
292:(2006).
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