ABSTRACT
Beneath this arrogant, nationally narcissistic habit lay the doctrine or perhaps more accurately the conceit of “American exceptionalism,” what Kinzer calls “the founding credo of the United States. Its meaning has changed a bit over four centuries but its essence is the same. Americans . . . believe that the United States has discovered the best way for a nation to live and be governed” and that “refusing to share this wonderful discovery with others . . . would be unpardonably selfish.”1
