Auf Mythenjagd in Amerika

摘要

This essay challenges various myths about the USA: ‘American exceptionalism’, and the assumption that the USA is both predominantly European in character and a general force for good in the world. Using Norbert Elias’s theory of civilising processes, it examines what is distinctive about American manners, violence in the USA, and state formation processes that have been continued in the form of empire formation processes. Overall, it is argued that the central historic experience shaping the ‘national character’ of Americans is of their country constantly becoming more powerful relative to its neighbours. This has had long-term and all-pervasive effects on the way they see themselves, on how they perceive the rest of the world, and how others see them.