A Great Disorder
National Myth and the Battle for America
Published on 14. January 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
528 pages
978-0-674-30143-6 (ISBN)
Description
Longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award in Nonfiction
A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year
"Sweeping...A new way to make sense not only of the past, but of the contemporary culture wars."
-New York Times Book Review
"A provocative culmination of Slotkin's field-defining arguments on the place of violence in creating America." -Kathleen Belew
"Brisk, bold, and thought-provoking." -Daniel Lazare, Arts Fuse
"[An] exciting and detailed new decoder ring of a book...While it is usually hyperbolic to claim that a book will change your life, this one may well have a permanent effect on how you consume and think about American political news." -Tom Zoellner, Los Angeles Review of Books
Red America and Blue America are so divided they could be two different countries, 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 key narratives that have shaped our conception of what it means to be American: the myths of the Frontier, the Founding, the Civil War (with dueling views of it as Liberation or the Lost Cause), and the Good War. Today, Slotkin argues, Trump and his MAGA followers play up a frontier-inspired hostility to the federal government and rally around Confederate symbols to champion a racially exclusive definition of American nationality; meanwhile, Blue America takes its cue from the protest movements of the 1960s, envisioning a limitlessly pluralistic country in which the federal government is the ultimate enforcer of rights and opportunities. With these opposing perspectives, American history-and the foundations of our democracy-has become a battleground. It remains to be seen which vision will prevail.
A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year
"Sweeping...A new way to make sense not only of the past, but of the contemporary culture wars."
-New York Times Book Review
"A provocative culmination of Slotkin's field-defining arguments on the place of violence in creating America." -Kathleen Belew
"Brisk, bold, and thought-provoking." -Daniel Lazare, Arts Fuse
"[An] exciting and detailed new decoder ring of a book...While it is usually hyperbolic to claim that a book will change your life, this one may well have a permanent effect on how you consume and think about American political news." -Tom Zoellner, Los Angeles Review of Books
Red America and Blue America are so divided they could be two different countries, 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 key narratives that have shaped our conception of what it means to be American: the myths of the Frontier, the Founding, the Civil War (with dueling views of it as Liberation or the Lost Cause), and the Good War. Today, Slotkin argues, Trump and his MAGA followers play up a frontier-inspired hostility to the federal government and rally around Confederate symbols to champion a racially exclusive definition of American nationality; meanwhile, Blue America takes its cue from the protest movements of the 1960s, envisioning a limitlessly pluralistic country in which the federal government is the ultimate enforcer of rights and opportunities. With these opposing perspectives, American history-and the foundations of our democracy-has become a battleground. It remains to be seen which vision will prevail.
Reviews / Votes
Sweeping...The culmination of a prolific career and a new way to make sense not only of the past, but of the contemporary culture wars. -- Nicole Hemmer * New York Times Book Review * [An] exciting and detailed new decoder ring of a book...While it is usually hyperbolic to claim that a book will change your life, this one may well have a permanent effect on how you consume and think about American political news...Slotkin is a heavy-hitting theorist who also happens to be a lucid writer about the breaking events of his own era-a rare breed in academia. -- Tom Zoellner * Los Angeles Review of Books * Impressively, [Slotkin] brings his discussion of national myths all the way to the present, exploring the visions of America's history and future delineated by today's radical right...He presents a well-informed analysis of the origins of today's culture war politics. -- Eric Foner * London Review of Books * Brisk, bold, and thought-provoking. -- Daniel Lazare * Arts Fuse * Offers a consistently revelatory lens through which to understand the evolution of popular beliefs and the imaginative dynamics at work during watershed historical moments...A wonderfully clear, cogent account of the stakes involved in American mythology. * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) * An ambitious and brilliant new book...one of the best single volumes to cover the span of American history and to demonstrate the relevance of the American past to the American present. -- Daniel Geary * Irish Times * Rich in details...offers much to consider about the relation of the current moment to the nation's past. -- Richard Candida Smith * Society for U.S. Intellectual History * One of the more insightful and original takes on Trump thought yet published. -- David C. Unger * Survival * Throughout his storied career, Richard Slotkin has worked tirelessly to pierce America's fictions with facts. His new work chronicles the creation of our central myths and shows quite clearly how they have been mobilized by both sides of the contemporary culture wars. A Great Disorder is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the past, present, and future possibilities of American democracy. -- Kevin M. Kruse, coeditor of <i>Myth America</i> Here we see a master at work: Richard Slotkin takes five foundational myths-the stories that bind together the American experience-and explores how each one has shaped our shared history and infuses the present. A provocative culmination of Slotkin's field-defining arguments on the place of violence in creating America, this book is a kind of decoder ring for understanding the ideologies, politics, and cultural productions of the current moment. -- Kathleen Belew, author of <i>Bring the War Home</i> Richard Slotkin has shown, in three celebrated books, how the myths of the frontier have shaped American history, culture, politics, and institutions. Now, he reveals how America's foundational myths have profoundly shaped its culture wars since the late 1990s. This book is a masterpiece, a fitting capstone to an extraordinary career. It should be required reading for all Americans, for it will change our understanding of the United States today. -- John Stauffer, author of <i>Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln</i> A supple and dazzling paean to the democracy our mythology once inspired, then impeded, and now fatally distorts. It affirms W. E. B. Du Bois's truth of truths: 'the contested meanings of the color-line have been fundamental to the shaping of American nationality, politics-and mythology.' -- David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of <i>W. E. B. Du Bois</i>More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 208 mm
Width: 139 mm
Thickness: 37 mm
Weight
464 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-674-30143-6 (9780674301436)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Richard Slotkin is the Olin Professor of English and American Studies, Emeritus, at Wesleyan University, best known for his award-winning trilogy on the Myth of the Frontier, two volumes of which, Regeneration Through Violence and Gunfighter Nation, were National Book Award finalists. Winner of the Shaara Award for Civil War fiction, he regularly contributes to media projects on gun violence, racism, the Civil War, and the West. His latest book, A Great Disorder, is longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award.