Abram Van Engen, "City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism" (Yale UP, 2020)

New Books in American Studies · May 7, 2020 · 35m

Abram Van Engen is an Associate Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis. Van Engen’s research examines early American literature, the history of emotions, Puritanism, collective memory, and American Exceptionalism. His latest book is City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism (2020), published by Yale University Press. In it, Van Engen offers a fascinating examination of John Winthrop’s A Model of Christian Charity, noting how this sermon was relatively unknown before the middle of the twentieth century. Yet, as he demonstrates by the end of the book, various…