"The most diverse nation on earth". Gli stati uniti: una storia eccezionale?

Abstract

Starting from the popular question formulated by Sombart in 1906 (‘Why is there no socialismin the United States?’), the article intends to present and discuss the problematicissue of American exceptionalism; the historiographical topos - not just American which affirmed the existence of peculiar, ‘unique’, and ‘exceptional’ qualities in the historicalevolution and in the American political culture. The essay offers a historiographicalreconstruction of the American ‘Left’ in the late Nineteenth century and early thirties ofthe Twentieth century, and follows out the main historiographical arguments on Americanexceptionalism, showing that these studies are based on the idea of a single and uniquemodel of historical and political development, a Eurocentric model, characterized by aunhistorical and strongly deterministic perspective.