Listen free for 30 days

  • Exceptional America

  • What Divides Americans from the World and from Each Other
  • Written by: Mugambi Jouet
  • Narrated by: Mirron Willis
  • Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Exceptional America cover art

Exceptional America

Written by: Mugambi Jouet
Narrated by: Mirron Willis
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $39.46

Buy Now for $39.46

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

In this provocative book, Mugambi Jouet describes why Americans are far more divided than other Westerners over basic issues, including wealth inequality, health care, climate change, evolution, gender roles, abortion, gay rights, sex, gun control, mass incarceration, the death penalty, torture, human rights, and war.

Raised in Paris by a French mother and Kenyan father, Jouet then lived in the Bible Belt, Manhattan, and beyond. Drawing inspiration from Alexis de Tocqueville, he wields his multicultural sensibility to parse how the intense polarization of US conservatives and liberals has become a key dimension of American exceptionalism - an idea widely misunderstood as American superiority. While exceptionalism once was a source of strength, it may now spell decline, as unique features of US history, politics, law, culture, religion, and race relations foster grave conflicts. They also shed light on the intriguing ideological evolution of American conservatism, which long predated Trumpism.

Anti-intellectualism, conspiracy-mongering, a visceral suspicion of government, and Christian fundamentalism are far more common in America than the rest of the Western world - Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

©2017 Mugambi Jouet (P)2017 Tantor

What the critics say

"Thought-provoking…. Jouet was raised in Paris by a French mother and a Kenyan father, and he tackles his subject with a multicultural point of view, considering anti-intellectualism, fundamentalism, sex and gender roles and the politics of mass incarceration." ( The Mercury News)

What listeners say about Exceptional America

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.