Try free for 30 days
-
A Great Disorder
- National Myth and the Battle for America
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 20 hrs and 53 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $33.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's Summary
Red America and Blue America are divided with wildly diverging views of why government exists and who counts as American. Their ideologies are grounded in different versions of American history, endorsing irreconcilable visions of patriotism and national identity.
A Great Disorder is a bold, urgent work that helps us make sense of today's culture wars through a brilliant reconsideration of America's foundational myths and their use in contemporary politics. Richard Slotkin identifies five myths, born of different eras, that have shaped our conception of what it means to be American: the myths of the Frontier, the Founding, the Civil War (which he breaks into two opposing camps, Emancipation and the Lost Cause), and the Good War, embodied by the multiethnic platoon fighting for freedom. His argument is that while Trump and his MAGA followers have played up a frontier-inspired hostility to the federal government and rallied around Confederate symbols to champion a racially exclusive definition of American nationality, Blue America, taking its cue from the protest movements of the 1960s, envisions a limitlessly pluralistic country in which the federal government is the ultimate enforcer of rights and opportunities. American history—and the foundations of our democracy—have become a battleground. It is not clear at this time which vision will prevail.