Deborah L. Madsen. American Exceptionalism. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998. vii + 186 pp. $18.00, paper, ISBN 978-1-57806-108-2.
Reviewed by David M. Wrobel
Published on H-Pol (July, 1999)
In American Exceptionalism, Deborah L. Mad‐ shortcomings are the sketchiness of the coverage, sen provides a brief and provocative overview of the disjointed structure of the narrative, and the a rather complex set of issues relating to the author's avoidance of some of the complexities of theme of America's sense of itself as a nation the topic. apart. The topic is of such great signifcance be‐ The Introduction and an opening chapter are cause the country's self-perception of its benign devoted to the early Massachusetts Bay Colony Pu‐ uniqueness and distinctiveness has played a ritans and Roger Winthrop's notion of the colony tremendously important role in shaping and justi‐ as a "city upon a hill." Madsen provides clear anal‐ fying national policy. Given the inherent complex‐ ysis of Puritan theology in support of her argu‐ ities of the topic, readers will appreciate the au‐ ment that the Puritans were the frst American thor's clear, fast-paced, and mercifully jargon-lite exceptionalists. She also includes useful discus‐ prose. The book moves quickly from the Puritans sions of the Jeremiad form, the captivity narra‐ to the present in six short chapters, providing cov‐ tive, and the writings of historians Perry Miller erage of Anglo-American theology, prose, poetry, and Sacvan Bercovitch. Clearly, as Madsen argues, and movies, as well as counter-exceptionalist ide‐ the idea of New England as an exceptional place, ologies expressed in the work of Native American, a place chosen by God, was an important part of Chicano, and to a lesser degree African American Puritan thinking in the New World. writers. This mixing of the "mainstream" and the However, it could certainly be argued that Pu‐ "margins" is one of the book's most important ritan notions of exceptionalism had less to do contributions. The tendency of most scholars of with the distinctiveness of a geographic setting the topic has been to focus on the ideology of the than with the New World Puritans' unique exam‐ European-American majority and, perhaps, its im‐ ple. The English Puritans viewed New England as pact on peoples of color, but not on the intellectu‐ a New Eden, but their emphasis was more frmly al responses of non-white populations to the na‐ on the religious experiment underway in the New tionalist exceptionalist mythology. The book's H-Net Reviews
World than on the qualities of the place itself. contend that a new form of government had been Their outlook is a signifcant precursor of Ameri‐ born and had developed in a new land, not trans‐ can exceptionalism, but may not be a full-fedged planted from somewhere else, as the Puritan faith example. A nationalist ideology of exceptionalism, had been. Thomas Jeferson and a host of others a more distinctly "American exceptionalism," ar‐ pointed out that in the New World, with its mas‐ guably did not start to develop for a century and a sive landed resources, the citizens of the new na‐ half after the Puritans' arrival in the New World. tion would not get "piled up upon one another in It is notable that the Puritans did not think of large cities," as was the case in the more heavily themselves as Americans, and initially considered populated countries of Europe.[1] A combination returning to England once the shining example of of ahistoricism and a confdence underwritten by their experiment had had its transforming infu‐ abundant natural resources gave American intel‐ ence on the European Church. lectuals the impression that their new republic Madsen's perception of the Puritans as the might escape the cyclical pattern of nations, em‐ frst American exceptionalists is certainly ques‐ pires, or republics rising and declining, a pattern tionable. Yet the reader gets no sense from the that most intellectuals had subscribed to. It was narrative that there is any debate over the origins these kinds of notions that seemed to underpin of American exceptionalism. And, if readers were America's exceptionalist ideology, at least accord‐ to question Madsen on the matter of the Puritans ing to historians such as Dorothy Ross.[2] Others, as the frst American exceptionalists, they might like Madsen, argue for the origins or foundations also contest her reading of the Antinomian con‐ of an exceptionalist ideology in Puritan thought. troversy. Madsen states that the controversy cen‐ The point is that there are disagreements over tered on Anne Hutchinson's and Roger Williams's such matters and Madsen ought to have explored challenge to the "connection between the tempo‐ them. ral and spiritual orders that was fundamental to At the close of the frst chapter Madsen moves exceptionalist ideology" (p. 22). Yet one wonders if from the Puritans straight to Benjamin Franklin, that connection between the temporal and spiri‐ skipping over the frst half of the eighteenth cen‐ tual realms didn't have more to do with the needs tury, a chronological short cut that perhaps illumi‐ of the theocratic Puritan hierarchy than with an nates the difculty of tracking American excep‐ ideology of exceptionalism. Did the Puritan tionalism in that period. But the expected discus‐ church leaders feel threatened primarily because sion of the development of an exceptionalist ide‐ their sense of exceptionalism was questioned or ology in the Revolutionary and Early National pe‐ because their authority as interpreters of God's riods does not really develop. Instead, Madsen will was challenged by Hutchinson and Williams? turns to the theme of "Dispossession: Native Contrary to Madsen's interpretation, one American Responses to the Ideology of Exception‐ could argue that it was the secularization of alism." This is a vitally important topic, but the American thought in the mid- to late eighteenth reader has not yet been told much about the ex‐ century, the securing of independence from Great ceptionalist ideology that nurtured and legitimat‐ Britain, and the development of a republican sys‐ ed the process of dispossession. What is more, the tem of government in the late eighteenth and ear‐ chronology is a little weak in places. For example, ly nineteenth centuries that shaped American ex‐ in her discussion of the Cherokee Elias Boudinot's ceptionalism. It was this later cultural context that "An Address to the Whites" (1826), Madsen notes gave rise to notions of the new United States as an that "the progress of the nation's Manifest Destiny exceptional place. Indeed, Americans could now is inextricably bound up with that of the native people in Boudinot's argument" (p. 53). But the
2 H-Net Reviews phrase Manifest Destiny was not used for almost fuid. Madsen provides coverage of the key writ‐ two decades after Boudinot's speech. Certainly an ers of the American Renaissance--Emerson, ideology was forming in the 1820s that can be Hawthorne, Melville, Thoreau, and Whitman--the considered an important precursor to Manifest Leatherstocking novels of James Fenimore Coop‐ Destiny. However, the full-blown concept of Mani‐ er, the rhetoric of abolitionists Frederick Douglass fest Destiny, drawing on a particular mix of no‐ and Harriet Jacobs, and the paintings that illus‐ tions of geographic determinism, divine provi‐ trated the theme of Manifest Destiny. It is a little dence, democratic superiority, Romantic National‐ too much for one chapter. The end result is more ism, and racialist assumptions, was a product of a cataloguing of mid-nineteenth century expres‐ the 1840s, a time of tensions between the U.S. and sions pertinent to the ideology of exceptionalism Great Britain and confict with Mexico. Manifest than a coherent analysis of a cultural context. It Destiny and exceptionalism are fundamentally in‐ needs to be emphasized that Ralph Waldo Emer‐ terrelated concepts, but they cannot be used inter‐ son and Henry David Thoreau were transcenden‐ changeably. talists frst, perhaps Romantic Nationalists second, In the chapter on Native American responses, and American exceptionalists third. Such distinc‐ Madsen provides useful analysis of Native Ameri‐ tions are worth remembering if we are to see the can literature, including works by Charles East‐ tremendous variety and disorderliness of Ameri‐ man, Luther Standing Bear, D'Arcy McNickle, Vine can thought, as opposed to seeing those diverse Deloria, Jr., James Welch, and Leslie Marmon strands as neatly woven parts of a coherent ex‐ Silko. Her treatments of individual works are con‐ ceptionalist fabric. cise and informative. However, the reader is left The next chapter, on "Chicano Responses to wondering whether these writers are really re‐ the Ideology of American Exceptionalism," begins sponding to America's "exceptionalist mythology," with coverage of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny or more directly to the acts of greed and racist ag‐ and the expansionism of the 1840s and moves gression that seem more hypocritical in light of quickly to "El Plan Espiritual de Aztln" (1969) and America's exceptionalist ideology. Perhaps this is the writings of Rudolfo Anaya, Francisco Lomel, a minor point, yet it is one that speaks to larger is‐ Gloria Anzalda, and others. The linkage is obvi‐ sues concerning the all-encompassing nature of ous, since these works are reactions to the loss of American exceptionalism in Madsen's treatment. a cultural homeland, and that loss was a conse‐ Works that relate to elements of the nation's ex‐ quence of military endeavors motivated by and ceptionalist outlook are viewed by the author as later justifed by the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. examples or manifestations of exceptionalism, Yet Madsen misses an opportunity to discuss and those who respond to or criticize American America's fn de siecle expansion and the utiliza‐ expansion are treated as conscious proponents or tion of exceptionalist rhetoric to justify the acqui‐ articulators of a full-blown counter-exceptionalist sition of non-contiguous territories in the wake of ideology. The term "American exceptionalism" the victory over Spain. takes on an elastic quality in Madsen's analysis. The book's ffth chapter, "Westerns and West‐ Perhaps this is only appropriate, given how vital ward Expansion," starts with an overview of Fred‐ the theme of exceptionalism is to understanding erick Jackson Turner's famous essay on "The Sig‐ American thought and action. nifcance of the Frontier in American History" However, in the book's next chapter on "Ex‐ (1893). Madsen then discusses how Turner's no‐ ceptionalism in the Nineteenth Century" the tion of the frontier as a meeting ground of sav‐ framework of exceptionalism becomes even more agery and civilization became a mainstay of west‐
3 H-Net Reviews ern novels and movies. Her discussions of Owen tween the Cold War rhetoric of the post-World Wister's The Virginian (1902) and Zane Grey's The War Two decades and the rhetoric of exceptional‐ Last of the Plainsmen (1908) and Riders of the ism, and would have found more important ex‐ Purple Sage (1912) are concise and readable, amples of the linkage in the speeches of Ronald though not strikingly new. Similarly, the chapter's Reagan than in Stallone's dialogue. discussion of John Ford's western movies, Stage‐ Madsen concludes the book with a bold state‐ coach (1939), Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yel‐ ment: "Exceptionalism was the legacy of the Old low Ribbon (1949), Rio Grande (1950), and The World for the New, but exceptionalism is now the Searchers (1956), while fast paced and insightful, legacy of the United States for us all" (p. 166). Both do not add much to the more extended analyses halves of the statement are questionable. Ameri‐ ofered in other places, such as Richard Slotkin's can exceptionalism may be less the product of Old Gunfghter Nation: The Myth of the West in Twen‐ World infuence and more the consequence of the tieth-Century America (1992) and John G. natural advantages of the New World setting and Cawelti's The Six-Gun Mystique (1973). the republican form of government that devel‐ The book's fnal chapter analyzes "Contempo‐ oped there. And, American exceptionalism may, rary Interpretations of Exceptionalism" and be‐ after all, be a particular national variant of an ide‐ gins with "Larry McMurtry's post-modern decon‐ ology that has been more universally subscribed struction of the myth of the West and the excep‐ to. One is hard pressed to identify a nation that tionalist assumptions upon which it is based" (p. has not developed an exceptionalist ideology, 146). One suspects that McMurtry would be sur‐ much less a powerful empire that has not had a prised to fnd himself labeled a post-modern de‐ sense of itself as unique. Madsen's analysis raises constructionist; what is more, McMurtry might the question "is America's exceptionalism really well argue that illuminating aspects of western exceptional?" She could have done more to an‐ mythology does not necessarily render one a swer that question. Still, it is only bold works such counter-exceptionalist. Still, Madsen's coverage of as Madsen's that raise such important issues. his major novels, including Lonesome Dove There are some notable omissions from the (1985), Anything for Billy (1988), and Bufalo Girls book's bibliography. Madsen includes Richard (1990), is quite efective. Also useful are her treat‐ Slotkin's Regeneration through Violence, but not ments of Toni Morrison's novels Beloved (1987) the two subsequent volumes in his trilogy, The Fa‐ and Jazz (1992) and of Thomas Pynchon's The Cry‐ tal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the ing Lot of 49 (1966), Gravity's Rainbow (1973), and Age of Industrialization, 1800-1890 (1985), and Mason & Dixon (1997). However, it is not always Gunfghter Nation. Gunfghter Nation includes an crystal clear how the plots and meanings of these extended analysis of the John Ford westerns, and novels constitute commentaries on or critiques of particularly detailed and interesting coverage of a national exceptionalist mythology. In a similar The Searchers, one of the movies that Madsen vein, the book's fnal section, "Resurrecting the chooses to examine at length. There is also no Myth: Representing the Vietnam Confict," which mention in the bibliography of Lee Clark echoes the thesis of Slotkin (frst articulated in Re‐ Mitchell's book Westerns (1996), or of Patricia Nel‐ generation through Violence: The Mythology of son Limerick's seminal study The Legacy of Con‐ the American Frontier, 1600-1860 [1973] and later quest (1987).[3] in Gunfghter Nation) may overstate the signif‐ Also absent from the bibliography and the cance of Sylvester Stallone's Rambo movies to the narrative coverage are the theoretical writings of theme of American exceptionalism. Madsen could the last decade on American exceptionalism, in‐ have explored more fully the connections be‐
4 H-Net Reviews cluding essays by Michael Kammen and Ian sues. In the last analysis, a small and accessible Tyrrell (part of an important Forum in the Ameri‐ work on such a vital topic may be more useful to can Historical Review), and books by Seymour the general reader than a large and comprehen‐ Martin Lipsett and Byron Shafer.[4] Madsen also sive work on a less signifcant topic. overlooks the rich historical literature on the con‐ Notes cept of Manifest Destiny, beginning with the writ‐ [1]. Thomas Jeferson's quotation is from H. A. ings of Julius Pratt and Albert Weinberg in the Washington, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefer‐ 1930s, Edward McNall Burns in the 1950s, Freder‐ son, 2 vols (Washington, D.C., 1854), 2: 332. See ick Merk in the 1960s, Thomas Hietala in the also Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from 1980s and 1990s, and, most recently, Anders an American Farmer (New York: Fox, Dufeld, Stephanson.[5] 1904), 41, 43-44. Now, given the breadth of Madsen's coverage [2]. Dorothy Ross, "Historical Consciousness in and the brevity of the narrative, one ought not to Nineteenth-Century America," American Histori‐ expect the work to be comprehensive. Indeed, cal Review, 89 (October 1984), 909-928, 912. An‐ much of the book consists of textual analysis of ders Stephanson, in Manifest Destiny: American novels and movies, with less attention focused on Expansionism and the Empire of Right (New York: historical context. But the conspicuous gaps in the New York University Press, 1995), like Madsen, be‐ bibliography speak to one of the book's major gins his examination with the Puritans. shortcomings. Madsen, in analyzing so many liter‐ ary sources, highlights some of the expressions of [3]. Richard Slotkin, Regeneration through Vi‐ exceptionalist thinking in America but does not olence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, provide efective reconstructions of the historical 1600-1860 (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan Univer‐ context at diferent points in time. The narrative sity Press, 1973); The Fatal Environment: The wanders from analysis of Puritan texts to analysis Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrializa‐ of recent Native American and Chicano writers. tion, 1800-1890 (New York: Atheneum, 1985); and The reader is moved from Winthrop and the Gunfghter Nation: The Myth of the West in Twen‐ Mathers, whose theological sermons are analyzed tieth-Century America (New York: Harper Peren‐ in historical context, to James Welch, Leslie Mar‐ nial, 1992). Lee Clark Mitchell, Westerns (Chicago: mon Silko, Rudolfo Anaya, and a host of other University of Chicago Press, 1996); Patricia Nelson contemporary writers who are refecting back on Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken the past. These various primary and secondary Past of the American West (New York: W. W. Nor‐ works are very diferent kinds of sources, and ton, 1987). they warrant diferent kinds of analysis. In short, [4]. Michael Kammen, "The Problem of Ameri‐ some of the texts examined are manifestations of can Exceptionalism: A Reconsideration," Ameri‐ exceptionalism, others are commentaries on the can Quarterly, 45 (March 1993), 1-43; Michael consequences and contradictions of exceptional‐ McGerr, "The Price of the 'New Transnational His‐ ism. tory,'" pp. 1056-1067, in AHR Forum, American Tighter organization and greater attention to Historical Review, 96 (October 1991), 1031-1055; historical context and to the rich historiographic Ian Tyrrell, "American Exceptionalism in an Age literature on the topic would have strengthened of International History," American Historical Re‐ American Exceptionalism. Yet, Madsen is to be view, 96 (October 1991), 1031-1055. See also, commended for taking on such a massive and Tyrell's rejoinder to McGerr's response (cited complex topic and raising so many important is‐ above), in ibid., 1068-1072; Byron E. Shafer, ed., Is America Diferent: A New Look at American Ex‐
5 H-Net Reviews ceptionalism (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1991) and Seymour Martin Lipsett, American Ex‐ ceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1996). [5]. Julius Pratt, "The Ideology of American Expansion," in Avery Craven, ed., Essays in Honor of William E. Dodd (Chicago: University Of Chica‐ go Press, 1935), 335-353; Albert K. Weinberg, Man‐ ifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1935; paper ed., Chicago: Quad‐ rangle Books, 1963); Edward McNall Burns, The American Idea of Mission: Concepts of National Purpose and Destiny (New Brunswick, New Jer‐ sey: Rutgers University Press, 1957); Frederick Merk, with Lois Bannister Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpreta‐ tion (New York: Random House, 1963, 1966); Thomas R. Hietala, Manifest Design: Anxious Ag‐ grandizement in Late Jacksonian America (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1985); An‐ ders Stephanson, Manifest Destiny; Sam W. Haynes and Christopher Morris, eds., Manifest Destiny and Empire: Antebellum American Expan‐ sionism (College Station: Published for the Univer‐ sity of Texas at Arlington by Texas A & M Univer‐ sity Press, 1997). This review was commissioned for H-Pol by Lex Renda
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Citation: David M. Wrobel. Review of Madsen, Deborah L. American Exceptionalism. H-Pol, H-Net Reviews. July, 1999.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3259
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