But what was remarkable in the wake of World War I was the degree to which American exceptionalism emerged strengthened and more vocal than ever, precisely at the moment when all the other major states of the world were coming to acknowledge their condition as one of interdependence and relativity. What we see, if we look closely at the rhetoric of Wilson and other American statesmen of the period, is that the ‘primary source of Progressive internationalism . . . was nationalism itself’.59 It was their sense of America’s God-given, exemplary role that they sought to impose on the world.
