Puritans and Imperialism - by Robert Kagan
In examining the roots of U.S. foreign policy, Robert Kagan looks back to the Puritan tradition of colonial America. In "Dangerous Nation," he argues that the ideology which took hold of early America was characterized by aggressive expansionism — not by isolationism and utopianism, nor by cities upon hills and covenants with God.
The picture of Puritan America as a pious Greta Garbo, wanting only to be left alone in her self-contained world, is misleading. The rich lands of North America helped unleash liberal, materialist forces within Protestantism that overwhelmed the Puritan fathers’ original godly vision. For one thing, Winthrop’s Puritans were not isolationists. They were global revolutionaries. They escaped persecution in the Old World to establish the ideal religious commonwealth in America, their “new Jerusalem.” But unlike the biblical Jews, they looked forward to the day, they hoped not far off, when they might return to a reformed Egypt.
Far from seeking permanent separation from the Old World, the Puritans’ “errand into the wilderness” aimed to establish a base from which to launch a counteroffensive across the Atlantic. Colonial America was characterized not by isolationism and utopianism, not by cities upon hills and covenants with God, but by aggressive expansionism, acquisitive materialism and an overarching ideology of civilization that encouraged and justified both.
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