[Tainnor]

There are a number of examples of non-monarchies that existed before the US did, such as Switzerland or the United Provinces, and at least the former had some elements of democracy built in early on (Landsgemeinde).

Undoubtedly, the American Revolution was huge and created something novel, but it's not like it all happened in a vacuum.

[pishpash]

I mean, confederacies are older than monarchies in human history. Even in N. America there was the Iroquois Confederacy right there. Not to take away from the rebellion and the formalization of political philosophy, but this is typical puffery by the ascendent Anglo-Saxons who were looking for a superiority narrative to serve the need of colonial nation-building and subsequently world domination.

[yucky]

>this is typical puffery by the ascendent Anglo-Saxons who were looking for a superiority narrative

By what metric was there not superiority?

[pishpash]

At the time? The Revolution-era US was none of the things that the linked article quotes as examples of exceptional greatness. It was a relative backwater, facing internal and external security threats and struggling to get a national government working.

[yucky]

Even then you had superiority over the native population in every metric (economic, health, education etc) unless I'm missing something.