For a half century following the end of World War II, the
seemingly permanent cold war provided the United States with an
organizing logic that governed nearly every aspect of American
society and culture, giving rise to an unwavering belief in the
nation's exceptionalism in global affairs and world history. After
the collapse of the Soviet Union, this cold war paradigm was
replaced by a series of new ideological narratives that ultimately
resulted in the establishment of another potentially endless war:
the global war on terror.
In "The New American Exceptionalism," pioneering scholar Donald
E. Pease traces the evolution of these state fantasies and shows
how they have shaped U.S. national identity since the end of the
cold war, uncovering the ideological and cultural work required to
convince Americans to surrender their civil liberties in exchange
for the illusion of security. His argument follows the chronology
of the transitions between paradigms from the inauguration of the
New World Order under George H. W. Bush to the homeland security
state that George W. Bush's administration installed in the wake of
9/11. Providing clear and convincing arguments about how the
concept of American exceptionalism was reformulated and redeployed
in this era, Pease examines a wide range of cultural works and
political spectacles, including the exorcism of the Vietnam
syndrome through victory in the Persian Gulf War and the creation
of Islamic extremism as an official state enemy.
At the same time, Pease notes that state fantasies cannot
altogether conceal the inconsistencies they mask, showing how such
events as the revelations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and the
exposure of government incompetence after Hurricane Katrina opened
fissures in the myth of exceptionalism, allowing Barack Obama to
challenge the homeland security paradigm with an alternative state
fantasy that privileges fairness, inclusion, and justice.
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