1st Edition

America, Amerikkka Elect Nation and Imperial Violence

By Rosemary Radford Ruether Copyright 2007
    300 Pages
    by Routledge

    288 Pages
    by Routledge

    America views itself as a nation inhabiting a "promised land" and enjoying a favoured relation with God. This view of unique election has been coupled with racial exclusivism and the marginalization of non-white citizens.

    America, Amerikkka traces the historical and ideological patterns behind America’s sense of itself. In its examination of America’s "chosenness", the book ranges across the doctrine of the "rights of man" in the 18th and 19th centuries, the role of America in the twentieth century as "global policeman", and the enforcement of neo-colonial relations over the "third world". The volume argues for a vision of global relations between peoples based on justice and mutuality, rather than hegemonic dominance.

    Introduction: The Two Faces of America, the Ideal America as Deception and as Protest  1. Elect Nations of Europe and the Making of the American Myth of Chosenness  2. The Rights of Man and the Excluded Others:  The Revolutionary Era and Beyond  3. Manifest Destiny and Anglo-Saxon Racism: 1815-1875  4. Manifest Destiny and American Empire: 1890-1934  5. America's Global Mission: The Cold War Years, 1945-1989  6. American Empire and its Denouement, 1990-2006  7. Alternative Visions of America: The Protest Tradition  8. Toward a US Theology of Liberation/Letting Go

    Biography

    Rosemary Radford Ruether is Visting Professor of Religion at Claremont Graduate University, USA

    "An important look at the dark underside of American history."The Journal of Church and State