Myth America edited by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer. In this hefty tome, 21 respected historians provide heavily-researched, evidence-based, fully-cited chapters debunking commonly-held misconceptions about the United States: that American Exceptionalism means anything; that the New Deal and the Great Society were failures; that change could be made if only we had "good protests"; that confederate monuments celebrate history, not racism; that "America First" is not fascist; that the Republican Party did not deliberately court southern racists for political power. The content is not exactly news to anyone who has really been paying attention, but seeing it laid out clearly and precisely is an education, with some astonishing moments highlighted that are often overlooked.
But of course, one must wonder how much it matters. The people who need to read this book will not read it, since it reeks of the "wokeness" they despise, and even if it were read to them they would ignore the facts and the historical record and the documentary evidence and choose to believe the narrative that makes them feel both comforted and victimized and which justifies their continual rancor. So it goes in America today.
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