A GREAT DISORDER

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.