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.’
![A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.9.4)
A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America
Narrated by Chris Sorensen
Richard SlotkinUnabridged — 20 hours, 53 minutes
![A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.9.4)
A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America
Narrated by Chris Sorensen
Richard SlotkinUnabridged — 20 hours, 53 minutes
Audiobook (Digital)
Free with a B&N Audiobooks Subscription | Cancel Anytime
Already Subscribed?
Sign in to Your BN.com Account
Related collections and offers
FREE
with a B&N Audiobooks Subscription
Overview
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.
Editorial Reviews
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Brisk, bold, and thought-provoking.
★ 2023-12-13
A historical study of how stories of national identity and destiny have defined American life.
Well known for his influential studies of frontier mythology, Slotkin anatomizes the essential structures that have informed the American imagination. The book is divided into two large sections: The first tracks “the historical evolution of the foundational myths that are most central to our national mythology,” and the second demonstrates “how these myths have played through the culture war politics and the multiple crises that have shaken American society since the 1990s.” In this complex narrative, the author focuses on four long-standing myths crucial in shaping citizens’ self-understanding and political decision-making: “the Myth of the Frontier; the Myth of the Founding; three different Myths of the Civil War; and the Myth of the Good War.” This approach offers a consistently revelatory lens through which to understand the evolution of popular beliefs and the imaginative dynamics at work during watershed historical moments. Slotkin achieves his goal—to explain our contemporary cultural crisis in relation to a mythic lineage—as he moves deftly from summaries of broad political trends to detailed interpretations of specific events and cultural products. In the final chapters, in which the author examines the Trump presidency and its aftermath, he convincingly connects MAGA ideology to deep-rooted ideological traditions that blend “the ethnonationalist racism of the Lost Cause, an insurrectionist version of the Founding, and the peculiar blend of violent vigilantism and libertarian economics associated with the Frontier.” Also compelling is Slotkin’s conclusion that the nation’s attempts to address its most urgent contemporary problems—from climate change to enduring racial injustice—are thwarted by “historical legacies in mythic form.” The author rightly suggests that revisionary narratives that reformulate old assumptions are badly needed if we are to successfully mediate conflicting interests.
A wonderfully clear, cogent account of the stakes involved in American mythology.
Product Details
BN ID: | 2940192580219 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Tantor Audio |
Publication date: | 06/25/2024 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
Videos
![](/static/img/products/pdp/default_vid_image.gif)