There are numerous books that purport to explain the current "populist" moment, but in The Strange Death of American Exceptionalism, Jack Ross puts both sides of the cultural war into a historical context. Ross explains both the self-destruction of the Christian right and the transformation of the Democratic party into a party of technocratic woke illiberalism. Neither woke identity politics, nor the cult of Trump are mere fads. Instead, they are the culmination of both necessary and contingent historical and cultural developments tracing all the way back to the roots of American civilization. This book is for those on the left or the right who still cling to the American Creed--the strong commitment to civil liberties and the embrace of individual rights over group rights--and look to the prospects for its revival.
Jack Ross is a freelance editor and independent historian in Brooklyn, New York. His previous books include The Socialist Party of America: A Complete History, published by the the University of Nebraska Press.
"A welcome call for reviving a new vital center that should be read by all those tired of the brutal stalemate American life and politics have become. Jack Ross gives American exceptionalism a proper burial but also provides a bracing polemic in favor of an enduring American creed based on the fundamental values of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. His erudite dissection of how the Democratic Party has lost its connection to that creed and, not coincidentally, its identity as the party of America's working people must be taken seriously." - Ruy Teixeira
"Jack Ross plunges us into the history of what 'American Exceptionalism' has meant--the political, social, and tribal forces that thread the national tapestry--and the demise of the American creed and identity amidst a culture war on a myriad of battlefields: academic, legal and corporate. This, combined with profound shifts in both the Democratic and Republican parties, 20+ years of failed wars and a general plunge in American Exceptionalist paradigm." - Kelly Vlahos
