A few months ago, one Sachin Peddada, speaking in the United States on behalf of Palestine, said, “We have to dismantle this idea of American exceptionalism…we live in an evil country.”

Not only is such a statement offensive and sad—all the more sad in that millions of ill-informed Americans would agree—it is historically inaccurate, and serves little purpose but to demonstrate ignorance of the facts.

When our son Robin was visiting us two years ago, we watched several History Channel documentaries about 18th and 19th century America—the Industrial Revolution and a couple about Revolutionary War. My appetite was whetted for more. Robin and I had several interesting discussions (our conversations are always interesting!), during which he recommended a few books by one of his favorite historical authors (John Ferling). I ordered several on the Revolutionary War period, including Ferling’s biography of two of its giants—John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. I had already been wading into Page Smith’s mammoth iconic multi-volume set of the history of America, which had been sitting on my shelf for decades. I love history, have a teaching minor in history, and have written many books of historical fiction which requires much research into the eras I happen to be focusing on. These include the three volumes of my “American Dreams” series which, if you stripped away the “story,” is almost my own version of the history of America.

For some reason, however, I have never focused for an extended period of time on the revolutionary period. Two years ago, my appetite whetted, I embarked on a steady reading diet of fairly huge books on various facets of our national saga. I’ve continued my trek through Page Smith’s volumes (eight altogether, every one, I think, over a thousand pages) while supplementing the incredible detail of his account (which I do skim through, skipping sections I’m simply not interested in) with other titles of interest. About a month ago I finished the longest book I have ever read, by another masterful author of history, William Manchester’s 1400 page epic, The Glory and the Dream. I say “read,” but in fact I may have actually read only a thousand pages of it…or less, or maybe more. I don’t keep track.

When a topic, or a deep dive into some individual or issue doesn’t interest me, I skim skip and move on. Time is too valuable. Manchester’s book only covers four decades of the mid-twentieth century, almost exactly bisected by the year I was born (1946). I found it compelling because in a sense it tells the story of my own and my parents roots between the Depression and the 1970s. As I progressed through the book, more and more I found my own life and memories intersecting with Manchester’s tale. (Like all good historians, he weaves a story not a textbook.) It is truly a riveting account of those years.

From it I moved on to another book recommended by Robin of a mere 1000 pages which I am finding almost more compelling than these others I mention, though I’ve admittedly not finished it yet. What makes A History of the American People fascinating is that the author, Paul Johnson, is English not American. His unique vantagepoint gives his perspective the objectivity of a third-party observer—an especially fascinating point of view today when most Americans, it seems, are on one side or another on every conceivable aspect of our history we might care to examine.

In his Preface, Johnson writes, “I…came to American history completely fresh…with no…prejudices or antipathies…I entered the study of American history through the back door….As I worked on the study of the past, and learned about the present…my desire to discover more about that extraordinary country, its origins and its evolution, grew and grew…The book has new and often trenchant things to say about every aspect and period of America’s past…I have endeavored, at all stages, to present the facts fully, squarely, honestly, and objectively.” (p. xiv)

Johnson is not a Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative (at least with respect to American politics). He is not hung up on all the talking points that are so divisive among us. He is simply fascinated with the idea of America as it was born in the early 1600s—literally born on the ships that brought the first settlers here before they even set foot on American soil—then as that idea eventually founded a new nation, and through time as the idea of America continued to inform who we are as “Americans.” Though Johnson’s book is now over 25 years old, I am finding it more relevant than ever in a time when that essential idea of what it means to be an American is in grave peril.

He opens his narrative thus:

“The creation of the United States of America is the greatest of all human adventures. No other national story holds such tremendous lessons, for the American people themselves and for the rest of mankind…as we enter the new millennium, we need to retell it, for if we can learn these lessons and build upon them, the whole of humanity will benefit…American history raises three fundamental questions. First, can a nation rise above the injustices of its origins, and, by its moral purpose and performance, atone for them? All nations are born in war, conquest, and crime…In the judgmental scales of history, such grievous wrongs must be balanced by the erection of a society dedicated to justice and fairness. Has the United States done this? Has it expiated its organic sins? The second question provides the key to the first. In the process of nation building, can ideals and altruism…be mixed successfully with acquisitiveness and ambition, without which no dynamic society can be built at all? Have the Americans got the mixture right? Have they forged a nation where righteousness has the edge over the needful self-interest? Thirdly, the Americans originally aimed to build an other-worldly “City on a Hill”…to be a model for the entire planet. Have they made good their audacious claims? Have they indeed proved exemplars for humanity?” (p. 3)

And thus begin Paul Johnson’s 1000 page trek through six centuries, beginning in the mid-fifteenth with the Portuguese slave trade. He notes John Winthrop’s shipboard speech in 1630 as in a sense setting the originating vision for the unique national experiment that would follow. “We must consider,” Winthrop said to his fellow pilgrims, “that we shall be as a City on a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.” (p. 33)

As an objective historian looking at the uniqueness of our history and the uniqueness of our national character and essence as a people, Johnson’s insights are profound. They are important not because he argues for (as others might argue against) American exceptionalism. He demonstrates that historically there has never been a country, national origins, or a people melded and merged and bonded into a homogeneous unity out of many races and ethnicities (and this not without great and still ongoing growing pains), anything like America and Americans. He does so not as a partisan but as an astute historian. He speaks of the uniqueness and exceptionalism of the American experiment not as a talking point to be debated…but as historic fact.

I am finding many of my own perspectives sending down roots in unexpected directions. Over and over as I read I find myself saying, “Of course, that explains…” That perspective of unique exceptionalism is important because there is something vibrant and special and extraordinary in this nation of ours that modern progressivism is doing its best to kill.

I say that not as a conservative or a liberal or anything other than, like Johnson, also as a historian. It is not the emotion-charged “exceptionalism” of the political right which those on the left loathe. It is an altogether different kind of exceptionalism that is rooted in the historic fact and idea which is America.

It is a new, profound, extraordinary, indeed a transformative strain of exceptionalism unknown on the earth until a unique breed of humanity was birthed out of the amalgamated diverse bloodlines of Native Americans and incomers over the centuries of white, black, red, yellow, brown, dark, and light skin. That mongrel breed came to be known simply as Americans.

And they were, with all their faults, unlike any other people to have walked the earth. It’s got nothing to do with whether we’re good or bad—we’re obviously a mixture both. Slavery was bad, racism is bad, corporate greed is bad, poverty is bad. None of that has anything to do with it. If we want to know who we are as Americans, and maybe who we are striving and aspiring to become, the answer may lie in our “exceptional” history, in the DNA of what makes us Americans.