Overview

American Exception seeks to explain the breakdown of US democracy, in particular to understand the uncanny continuity of American foreign policy, the breakdown of the rule of law, and the extreme concentration of wealth and power into an overworld of the corporate rich. To trace the evolution of the American state, Aaron Good takes a deep-politics approach. The term deep state was badly misappropriated during the Trump era. In the simplest sense, it here refers to all those institutions that collectively exercise undemocratic power over state and society. To trace how we arrived at this point, American Exception explores various deep state institutions and history-making interventions. Key institutions involve the relationships between the overworld of the corporate rich, the underworld of organized crime, and the national security actors that mediate between them. History-making interventions include the toppling of foreign governments, the launching of aggressive wars, and the political assassinations of the 1960s. In its long history before World War II, the United States had a deep political system, a system of governance in which decision-making and enforcement were carried out within--and outside of--public institutions. It was a system that always included some degree of secretive collusion and law-breaking. After World War II, US elites decided to pursue global dominance over the international capitalist system. Setting aside the liberal rhetoric, this project was pursued in a manner that was by and large imperialistic rather than progressive. To administer this covert empire, US elites created a massive national security state characterized by unprecedented levels of secrecy and lawlessness. The Global Communist Conspiracy provided a pretext for exceptionism--an endless exception to the rule of law. What gradually emerged after World War II was a tripartite state system of governance. The open democratic state and the authoritarian security state were both increasingly dominated by an American deep state. Aaron Good concludes by assessing the prospects for a revival of US democracy.

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Reviews

A gifted student of history, Aaron Good digs deep into its underbrush of confusion to bring out lucid insights into the American Empire--and the reasons for its behavior. This work again reminds us of the pernicious impact of intelligence and security forces and their role in undermining our integrity as a country. -- Oliver Stone, author and Academy Award-winning director, producer, and screenwriter In The Untold History of the United States, Oliver Stone and I countered the dangerous myths of unbridled American rectitude and imperious exceptionalism. In American Exception, Aaron Good takes this a big step further, producing something we might call untold social science, a work that brilliantly illuminates the deep political forces that have animated the American empire throughout its volatile, troubled, and often violent history. -- Peter Kuznick, professor of history and director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University

Author Information

Aaron Good has a PhD in Political Science from Temple University. Prior to completing his doctorate, he worked on the 2008 Obama campaign in Missouri. Born and raised in Indiana, he has since lived and worked in Taiwan and Shanghai. He currently resides with his wife and son in the greater Philadelphia area where he has been a history and social science instructor. Arthur Morey has recorded countless audiobooks, including titles by such authors as M. Scott Peck, John Updike, Richard Russo, Anne Tyler, and John Irving. He attended Harvard and the University of Chicago and has taught performance and writing at Fordham, Northwestern, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Arthur has appeared in a host of off-Broadway and off-Loop productions. He has won three AudioFile Magazine 'Best Of' Awards: in 2011 for BIOGRAPHY & HISTORY, in for History & Historical Fiction, and in 2009 for Nonfiction & Culture. His work has also garnered multiple AudioFile Earphones awards, and he has been nominated for an Audie Award.

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