From Settler Colony to Global Hegemon: Integrating the Exceptionalist Narrative of the American Experience into World History

Abstract

THE PARADOX HAS BEEN THERE from the early years of settlement along the North Atlantic coast. The Pilgrims, and the Puritans soon after them, had migrated to the howling wilderness of New England out of determination to build utopian community that transcended history, New Zion that was free of the corruption and oppression they sought to leave behind in Europe. In his metaphor of a city upon the hill, John Winthrop captured the Puritans' sense of the exceptional nature of their undertaking, which they believed both divinely ordained and without precedent, at least since biblical times. But while Winthrop underscored the exceptional nature of the Puritan experiment in political, social, and religious development, he also stressed its lessons for the rest of humanity, lessons that he believed would be regarded as a story and by-word through the world. The city, after all, was on high ground with the eyes of all people upon it.1 Winthrop's metaphor proved to be foundational for the American nation that emerged in the following centuries from scattering of tiny settler enclaves in New England and along the shores of Chesapeake Bay. Additional images and beliefssuch as the rugged individualism exemplified by the frontiersman, the rags-to-riches ascent of the hardworking entrepreneur, and the non-imperialist nature of American expansion-subsequently reinforced exceptionalist formulations of the American experience and national identity on the part of historians and politicians alike. But Winthrop's city on the heights has been among the most enduring and frequently evoked symbols of national experience that has been seen to be so distinctive that it defies comparison with or incorporation into the history of the rest