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The year 2025 will mark the bicentennial of the start of organized immigration from Norway to the United States. This book explores how Norwegian immigrants and observers viewed the political system they encountered in America, and what impact their experiences with American democracy had on the development of political and social life in Norway. Through letters and reports, immigrants - and visitors - conveyed their impressions of religious freedom, local democracy, property rights, women's rights, the trade union movement, and a number of other topics, inspiring initiatives and debates in Norway. But the encounter with the United States was also an encounter with the dark sides of American society, such as slavery, indigenous oppression, racism, corruption, and brutal capitalism. In “Democracy in America – Horrifying Example or Exemplary?”, the authors take a close look at Norwegian perceptions of the United States over 200 years, beginning with accounts of early immigrants, through depictions of the struggle between labor and capital, inspiration from strong professional women and admiration for American rearmament against Hitler, all the way to opposition to American policy and cultural imperialism in the decades after World War II. American democracy may seem to be an example to be emulated, but it may also seem to be an example to be feared and cautioned against.