The editors and the contributors don’t define the difference between a lie, myth, and a legend, and perhaps this is a good rhetorical strategy for a book of this kind. Not one of the topics is identified as a complex historiographical debate, with any reasonable opposing voices. Instead, each one of these myths, lies, and legends is introduced by way of a quote or example from people like Rick Santorum or Donald Trump, certainly not America’s leading historical minds.

Is, for example, the myth that the term “America First” does not have racist and fascist roots really one of our top twenty lies and legends? What about the myth that the “Reagan Revolution” was actually a revolution? The inclusion of chapters on such topics certainly reflects a recency bias.Īs far as I can tell, not once do the authors point to any prominent conservative historians who hold the views they label as myths, lies, and legends. Like any collection of essays, some contributions to this volume are stronger than others, and I would agree that most of the historical errors identified are indeed errors, but I doubt that some of these are the “biggest legends and lies” about our past, as the subtitle of the book claims. For those who know the co-editors, it will come as little surprise that all twenty lies, myths, and legends identified in the book are supposedly conservative views about history, including the myth that the United States is not or has never been an empire, the idea that there were few Native Americans around when European settlement of the Eastern seaboard began, and that immigrants are part of a “hostile invasion.” The editors have a noble wish that everyone would agree on historical facts, which, they write, “makes constructive dialogue possible.” But history is an endless discussion and historians rarely agree about much. In this new book, Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past, co-editors Julian Zelizer and Kevin Kruse have assembled a team of well-known academic historians to help the public sort historical fact from historical falsehood.

Myth america kruse