Yet, higher education has shaped the American experiment from the beginning. Enlightenment ideas studied in 18th-century ...

By adopting our history. Another benefit of American exceptionalism is that it’s self-correcting. When we fail to live up to our ideals, as we did with slavery before the Civil War, ...

Gordon S. Wood is the author of “The Radicalism of the American Revolution,” winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for history. As we approach the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, we ...