Sacvan Bercovitch, a literary and cultural critic who studied the roots of American exceptionalism, argued in his influential 1978 monograph The American Jeremiad that American prophets have long taken the nation to task for falling short of its ideals, for its sins of commission and omission—but also have held out the hope of some sort of salvation if, as Jeremiah preached, we truly amend our ways and our doings, if we truly act justly one with another.
