Behold, America

By Sarah Churchwell,

Book cover of Behold, America: The Entangled History of America First and the American Dream

Book description

A GUARDIAN AND A SMITHSONIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR
A SUNDAY TIMES, OBSERVER AND I-PAPER SUMMER READ

'Enormously entertaining' Sunday Times
'Fascinating' New Statesman
'An enthralling book' Guardian

'The American dream is dead,' Donald Trump said when announcing his candidacy for president in 2015. How would he revive it? By…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Behold, America as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

The book explores the complicated historic interaction among what for many are understood to be opposing tendencies of American life. On the one hand, the promise of the ‘American Dream,’ long held as an ethos of America and associated with expectations of liberty, equality, and access to opportunity. While the phrase ‘America First’ is more often associated with isolationist and nativist campaigns, intolerance of others, and even supremacist ideology. 

Yet, as Churchwell reveals, during times of economic, social, or international crisis the appeal of demagoguery would enable the twisting of the meaning of these two phrases for particular and sometimes…

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Book cover of Grand Old Unraveling: The Republican Party, Donald Trump, and the Rise of Authoritarianism

Grand Old Unraveling By John Kenneth White,

It didn’t begin with Donald Trump. When the Republican Party lost five straight presidential elections during the 1930s and 1940s, three things happened: (1) Republicans came to believe that presidential elections are rigged; (2) Conspiracy theories arose and were believed; and (3) The presidency was elevated to cult-like status.

Long…

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