Kevin M. KruseRezensionen

Princeton University professor Kevin Kruse is one of my favorite Twitter follows. He regularly posts threads that bring the historical receipts to refute whatever the misinformation talking points of the day are on that woebegone social-media quagmire. And he does it with an engaging narrative style that even non-historians can follow, and a mocking wit that feels deeply satisfying even when you know it's likely having no effect on the grifters he's targeting.

With Myth America, Kruse and his fellow editor Julian Zelizer (also a Princeton professor) have gathered essays from noted scholars across the spectrum of American history to refute some of the pernicious myths (some might call them lies) that are repeated ad nauseam these days. The hot-button topics include myths about "American Exceptionalism," immigration in general and the American-Mexican border in particular, the success of the Depression-era New Deal social welfare programs, the claims of voter fraud that underlie ongoing efforts to curtail voting rights, the increasing violence of police interactions with communities of color, and more.

Zelizer's essay deconstructs the myth of the Reagan Revolution, while Kruse expands a topic on which he has expended many tweets: the so-called Southern Strategy that Republicans employed to attract racist white voters in the American South that over decades resulted in the complete flip of the party from the "party of Lincoln" freeing the slaves to the "party of Trump" courting white Christian nationalists.

I got my bachelor's degree in history so I found I had at least a superficial knowledge of most of the topics covered in Myth America. For me, the value was in the details, having the bare facts put into context and buttressed by plenty of hard historical evidence. Some of the topics, such as the one on "The Magic of the Marketplace," which delves into economic theory vs economic reality, were things I had heard without understanding for years, and I felt smarter for finally getting encough context to be able to understand the topic the next time it comes up in the news. But I think the authors provide enough context to allow even readers completely unfamiliar with a topic to gain an useful understanding of it.

I'm sure there will be people who dismiss this book as partisan, a piece of liberal propaganda. I found the individual arguments to be dispassionate and matter-of-fact, a welcome breath of fresh air these days. The citations of historical evidence from primary and other trusted sources provide a foundation of facts from which fair-minded individuals can start a discussion about interpretation.

I was fortunate enough to have both the ebook and the audiobook editions, and found it most effective to listen to the essays, with a break between each to process the information I learned. During that time, I would often consult the ebook to look up the footnotes and in some cases the charts and graphs referenced in the text in order to more fully understand the topic. The audiobook used several narrators who were generally fine if uninspired choices, although I was disappointed they didn't choose male narrators for the essays written by men and female narrators for the essays written by women. Instead both the male and female narrators seemed to be assigned more or less randomly.½

God I wanted to like this book.
I suppose it was an enlightening bundle of facts.
It has no point of view of course. Or rather it has an NPR point of view which is essentially the same.
It stops way to soon (like nixon time for the well researched stuff) to be of any use today.
If it could have kept up giving the facts up til a few years ago it would at least have been useful.
It is easy to read it and hear about all the awful things the republicans did and think that the author obviously has a point of view against these things he describes but he really doesn't. Any trumpster out there could read this and think boy those republicans should have gone farther.
It is a Vapid book.

This book was a wonderful mix of much of the stuff I was "taught" in school, stuff I, as a card-carrying progressive, believe, and then the stuff that I don't agree with. It was a good book to listen to, but some of the narrators did a better job than others. It would be a better book, much better imho to read as a paper text, preferable hard back. It is too difficult to search back on bits and pieces.½

An educational read that leaves me frustrated that many people don't try to educate themselves. "If you say something enough times, to those saying it, it becomes truth" couldn't be truer.

An interesting book to read in this moment when the religious right is ascendent and so openly devoted to corporate interests.

A mind-blowing look at the way corporations and politicians used religion to gain power and money. Recommended reading for everyone.

This is a long and very thorough exploration of desegregation and white flight in Atlanta and the suburbs during the post-war years. Kruse writes with great clarity, which is particularly impressive given the number of people involved over the decades. He really lets the primary sources shine, and his decision to let segregationists of the period speak for themselves allows the reader a greater understanding of the way white segregationists defended themselves and how those defenses changed over the years. Kruse also writes clearly about the ways in which segregation, desegregation, and white flight away from the city/public spaces into suburbia/private clubs continues to shape Altanta and the rest of the country.½

I was born near the end of 1973, so this book is essentially the history of America during my lifetime. The authors are professors at Princeton University who built the book out of course on recent American history. I'm not familiar with Zelizer, but Kruse has established himself as a leading public historian by sharing facts and debunking myths on Twitter. The central thesis is that the polarized politics of the United States began in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal (which disillusioned Americans faith in government, something that is ironically exploited by Nixon's own party) as well as the revolutions of civil rights, gender, and sexuality and their conservative counter-revolutions.

The book is a thorough history of the past 45 years, and I had a lot of "oh yeah, I remember that!" moments. I have two criticisms of the book in general. One, is that it reads like a laundry list of events with very little analysis. Two, it is a top-down approach focusing on the actions of Presidents and Congresses as opposed to the greater societal actions. I understand it would be a much thicker book if these things were included, but the instances in the book that offer analysis and history of the people are much richer than the book overall.

That being said, this is an excellent summary of how we got to where we are in the United States. Every living American has lived at least partly in the period of time covered here and would benefit from reading about our recent history.

Finished on flight home. I don't remember Watergate, my political memory begins with my father yelling at President Carter on a black and white TV. This is an excellent narrative history of the political events of the last 40 years. I would recommend it unreservedly.

A highly researched investigation into the origins of American civic religion as currently manifest in its emphasis on the "Judeo-Christian" tradition and particularly the theme of "One Nation Under God."

Kruse writes books with explosive subtitles with provocative theses that are laid out with impressive detail and saturated with primary source quotations. While most attempt to make sense of America's "civic deism" beginning in the 1950s, Kruse goes back to the 1930s with the coordination between certain religious leaders who espoused a "Christian libertarianism" and who found the New Deal to be pagan socialism and the corporate titans of the day who were looking for some good PR and image rehabilitation. The story centered on Fifield and Vereide and their promotions interweaving "Judeo-Christianity," "freedom of association," "free markets," and the like, and all in contrast to the current government which to them was socialist, pagan, and threatening these values.

By the 1950s they found their man in Eisenhower, who very much was about developing a more religious character to the nation. Kruse lays out exactly how Eisenhower promoted a "civic deism," encouraging religious belief and participation, "whatever it was." Yes, it was critiqued for its hollowness and vacuousness, but the appeal worked. All the forces behind the "Christian libertarianism" of the 30s and 40s supported Eisenhower, and Eisenhower responded with all kinds of appeals for civic religion: America became "one nation under God," in contrast to the godless Communists; Eisenhower promoted the National Prayer Breakfast; all kinds of pageantry was on display, often funded by corporate titans behind the scenes, espousing the strength of America as its faith, with few being confused about the nature of that faith: somewhat Jewish, but very much Christian. The message was sent, and heard loud and clear: to be a good American meant to have a faith in God, particularly in Christianity. Religious participation increased to a heretofore unseen level in America, and one which would never be eclipsed.

And yet Eisenhower was a bit of a "poison pill" for the "Christian libertarians," because he had no interest in dismantling the New Deal state. Instead, the very things the "Christian libertarians" were trying to paint as pagan and socialist, and their skepticism of the government, was instead "baptized" and made part of this "Christian nation" and its ideology. Whereas promoting this civic deistic religion was a "right wing" thing to do in the 30s and 40s, it lost its partisan association in the 50s and became a bipartisan project. Kruse details how "under God" was added to the pledge at this time and the establishment of "In God We Trust" as the national motto.

Kruse then describes the limits of this civic religion as it would become manifest in the 50s and 60s. Generic appeals to being under God were one thing. Gideons pushing the KJV on schoolchildren was perfectly fine to many, but deeply offensive to Jewish people, Catholics, and a few other groups. The imposition of a particular prayer in the state of New York led to the beginning of questioning about prayer and devotional time in schools; it would soon be entirely dismantled. Kruse does well at documenting, in detail, the response to these actions, especially the advancement of a school prayer amendment to the Constitution, and how the fault line developed between the institutional heads who generally spoke for Christian denominations and the "common man" and the "common preacher" who did not maintain the same fears or concerns.

Kruse then compares and contrasts the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations, demonstrating how the latter consciously attempted to turn back the clock, as if 1960-1968 did not exist, with Billy Graham prominent in his activities, a religious service in the East Wing of the White House, and a very deliberate appeal to the conservative religious voter. But Kruse demonstrates well that it was no longer unifying the nation, but a source of division. Kruse ends his main thesis in this period before 1972, but in an epilogue brings the story to the Obama years: the rise of Reagan, the faith talk of Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama, and all of it coming back to the development and advancement of the civil deistic religion over this period from 1935 to 1955.

There is a lot here worthy of consideration. Kruse does well at showing that while "Christian libertarianism" was one way of looking at Jesus, it was by no means the only one; FDR had a Christian faith, and associated his New Deal work with that faith. One could imagine an America in which the social safety net was understood in Christian terms and lauded and valued as such. It is worth noting that Fifield may have been politically right-wing but theologically was liberal. He rejected those aspects of the Gospel story that did not fit his libertarian and free market conceptions. While today those who are religiously liberal tend to do the opposite, and emphasize Jesus' concern for the oppressed, it's a good reminder that once one is untethered from the text one can go in a host of directions and in the end distort what God has made known in Jesus.

Kruse provides great benefit in providing an often unacknowledged dimension in the explosion of religiosity in the postwar period. No doubt there would have still been a resurgence in faith even if there were not this sustained "marketing" of civic deism by the Eisenhower administration; nevertheless, what Eisenhower wrought has implications which last until today. The message, again, was that a good American goes to church. The driver was not faith but patriotism and citizenship. Throughout faith was secondary to the American project, and it has ever been thus since. To this day America has broad majorities who have faith in God; and yet, when probed, it is evident that faith is not deeply in what God has done in Jesus. It barely knows the substance of what the Bible teaches, but is very strong on the USA. It has advanced the agenda of the USA in whatever the USA has done, especially the agenda favored by conservatives. It does not handle critique of American policy or agendas well. And it certainly has not weathered the demographic battles of recent days well: American Evangelicalism today is not known as much for embodying Jesus as it is the GOP agenda, and has reached its apotheosis with the current executive, who in his life embodies almost everything which Jesus would be against. Such is almost the inevitable conclusion when conservative ideological nationalism is the driver, and faith is in the backseat.

No argument: some who came to the pews because they wanted to be good Americans learned of the Christ, repented, and followed Him faithfully. Many of their children would become immersed in Christianity and would practice it. It wasn't a terrible move. But it benefited the state, and a particular political ideology, more than it benefited the Kingdom of God in Christ, and the latter has suffered because of it.

Highly recommended for consideration.

Like nancyadair, I lived through this period, though I'm perhaps 5 years younger and spent parts of it living in Canada. Like her, the book brought back memories, memories which mostly revived old angers.

Unlike her though, in reading this book, I wondered about the authors' biases, and what was being left out to produce this condensed narrative, and whether it was important.

And getting angry so often made it hard to finish.

Maybe the difference is that I'm Canadian, though living in the US, and so the lack of a global perspective is more noticeable to me. But it feels like something else is missing that really should be there, and I just can't put my finger on it.

June 17, 1972.

It was the day of my marriage. By our first anniversary, the date had another meaning: the date of the Watergate break-in.

As a girl, I had seen America come together with the assassination of President Kennedy and divide over the war in Viet Nam. The sounds of my teenage years were the chants of "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today," and the music of Woodstock.

I finished my education, worked, had a child, sent him to college, saw him settle in work and a house, and retired against the backdrop of a further dividing America.

Fault Lines condenses history into paragraphs, each event eliciting a memory. I remembered it all. And the more I read the angrier I became.

In under 400 pages, Kevin M. Kruse and Justin E. Zelizer have compacted American political, social, and media history into a readable narrative.

Movements arose demanding equal rights while counter-movements strove to maintain the status quo--the authority of white males. The conflict has not resolved to a Hegelian shift to the center though, just a rising antagonism and deepening divide.

They describe how cultural shifts and disturbances impacted film and television and how the rise of the Internet and cable news shattered the common ground of national news.

For me, it was a condensation of memories. I had to wonder how a younger reader would respond. The authors are historians and Princeton University professors. They have taught this history to students.

This is a history book and not an offering of solutions; there are plenty of current books that address where to go from here. The authors state that the challenge is to "harness the intense energy that now drives us apart and channel it once again toward creating new and stronger bridges that can bring us together."

But so far, those leaders who endeavored to bridge the gap and pledge bipartisanship failed. There is no indication that the old fashioned values cherished in the past--working together for the common good, obeying the rule of law and custom, communicating, finding common ground--are reemerging. Instead, political leaders are ignoring the will of the majority, engineering ways to disenfranchise groups, with special interest group money buying political clout.

We are told that by knowing the past we can plan for the future, understanding our errors we can proactively prevent the repetition of those errors. I know that America has gone astray many times in our brief history, and the countering movements arighted our ship of state. It is my 'glass half full' hope.

I received an ARC from the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.

A deep dive into the politics of the struggle between integration and segregation in Atlanta, primarily focusing on the postwar period until the late 1960s, as a means of documenting the development of arguments and ideologies now at the heart of the American political conservative movement.

The author lets the primary source documents, interviews, newspaper articles, and speeches do the heavy lifting. He sets up the story by establishing the political realities of the area at the time: state government controlled by the poor whites of the rural areas, but the city as run by a coalition of wealthy whites, white moderates, the business community, and the leaders of the black community in opposition to the poor white population. He documents how Atlanta's governing coalition attempted to negotiate the federal demands for integration in such a way as to be voluntary, to cause as little unrest as possible, and to satisfy the minimum of the federal standards without entirely dismantling segregation. The author makes it clear that almost all the white people throughout remained committed champions of segregation; the difference was that some saw that it was going to be inevitably broken down and was going to be bad for business, and others clung to it firmly. The author then describes the flashpoints of disruption in good order: the processes by which neighborhoods transitioned from all white to mostly black, and how attempts to keep neighborhoods white involved contrived conceptions of community and ultimately fell apart when the economic incentives of the individual homeowner overruled what might be seen as optimal by the whole community; how public parks and areas would follow in their transition from white spaces to black spaces; the contest regarding integration of schools, and how for years integration was frustrated by restrictions on numbers of black students allowed into mostly white schools, and the processes by which a school at risk of integration would experience white flight. The author demonstrates how all of these things were considered problematic by many white people who were convinced their way of life would be irreparably lost if segregation were dismantled, and fought against it bitterly.

The author then documented the collapse of the moderate white - business - black community coalition in the wake of the sit-ins and the next generation of civil rights leaders in the early 1960s. The coalition was completely against it: white businessmen did not want integration of business forced on them by law or by pressure, and older black leaders felt the younger ones were pushing too much and too hard. The sit-ins and pressure on businesses happened anyway, and business owners found relief on the basis of the passage of the Civil Rights Act, now having the government to "blame" for them being "forced" to integrate their stores and spaces.

The author's primary concern is to plot the changes in argumentation and the process of white flight: segregationist arguments began in their naked white supremacist forms, including aggression by KKK members, house bombings, threats and acts of violence, etc., and when these became less popular, how the movement shifted to start focusing on matters of "freedom of association," federal restrictions on freedom and government interference in business, and the merits of the "free market." He documents how these latter arguments would end up becoming more ascendant and acceptable to a wider range of white people as the Civil Rights movement gained momentum. He also demonstrates how white people would rather give up on an area rather than see true integration, and identifies this desire for segregated space as the primary driver for the white flight out of Atlanta and the development of the outer suburbs over this entire period.

He then identified these suburban areas as the new power center for the more finessed segregationist arguments of "free association" and "free markets" and the demonization of the federal government, and federal intervention, on account of its imposition of integration in the cities of the American South. He demonstrates powerfully how in defeat these segregationist arguments gained even more strength than they had before: he chronicled how one of the champions against business integration ended up becoming the governor of Georgia. He concludes by charting the massive party realignment of the 1970s and 1980s and how the Republican party in the South wholeheartedly embraced the previously segregationist arguments of free association, free markets, and the demonization of the work of the federal government in terms of intervention in people's lives and their decisions, as well as the demonization of federal programs for the poor as handouts for unworthy and lazy people, exploiting common stereotypes about certain kinds of black people. He points out how so many of these arguments gained great prominence at the hands of Republican representatives from the Atlanta suburbs, primarily in the form of Newt Gingrich, and how they continue to dominate political discourse in America.

The author does emphasize that many today may use arguments about free association, free markets, skepticism of federal government intervention, and live within suburbs without being segregationists or white supremacists. Nevertheless, it is very eye opening to see how these arguments were absolutely firmly rooted in the desire of white Southerners to preserve a fully segregated society, and to do so without regard to the experience and deprivation it would cause for black people. It would cast modern conservative arguments regarding concerns about businesses serving gay people or other forms of sexual minorities in a very unflattering light, since those arguments are precisely the same as used by white segregationists to justify their continued discrimination against black people.

The author's thesis will probably not be very convincing for those who are inclined to be skeptical of it, but it's hard to argue with the depth of exploration of the primary sources. If nothing else, the work is worthy of consideration to be forced to confront the ugliness inherent in those primary sources, and as a reminder that while these events took place in the past, they are too recent to believe they do not continue to have influence on the present.

This is a fascinating and insightful look at the history of the United States since 1974. The authors look at the polarization in our country and make some compelling arguments that trace significant origins to 1974 - the year of Watergate, Nixon's resignation, the end of the Vietnam War, the OPEC crisis and desegregation riots. They discuss how other events since then have only widened and deepened these fault lines, eventually leading to the election of Trump and the deeply divided nation we live in today. The authors provide with reader with a great deal of information and much to think about, which is obviously the purpose of a great book.

Every American should read this to understand when and how the myth of a Christian America was started.

I hadn't realized how relatively recently the public expression of religion into the civic space happened. I grew up thinking that the "under God" phrase was a traditional part of the Pledge of Allegiance that we recited each morning at school. In reality, that phrase was incorporated when I was a pre-schooler. Similarly, "In God We Trust" was only adopted as the nation's official motto in 1956, replacing the unofficial but traditional "E Pluribus Unum."
The author does a fine job of tracing the forces that worked to introduce these changes. Prominent among them was the dissatisfaction of conservative businessmen with what they viewed as the creeping socialism that they saw FDR's New Deal as introducing. Another major force was the rise of mass media evangelistic Christianity--most notably in the person of Billy Graham.
It took the Supreme Court to reinforce separation between church and state.½

Please read my review at the New York Journal of Books:

http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/one-nation

More politically focused than Crabgrass Frontier, which all the authors take as a foundational text, the essays explore areas that Jackson did not go into detail on, though they don’t really disagree with his analysis other than to qualify it in certain ways. Essays consider segregation, the role of universities and research parks in shaping suburbia, visions of suburbia as Hell, African-American suburban experiences and aspirations, California’s tax revolt, claims for socioeconomic equity, and immigration. The most powerful for me was the first, David M.P. Freund’s Marketing the Free Market: State Intervention and the Politics of Prosperity in Metropolitan America, which argued that pervasive government interventions that allowed whites to move to the suburbs underwrote not just mortgages but a new narrative of racial innocence. By accepting the government’s own narrative that government intervention was only guaranteeing what the free market would naturally produce, and that this free market was necessary as an engine of American prosperity, whites were able to believe a number of related claims: African-Americans naturally drive down property values; white ability to move to the suburbs was a sign of deserved success; opposition to integration was not due to racism but to cold hard economic facts about property values. “It’s only natural, and thus we need to reinforce it with incentives and punishments”—the logic of oppression repeats itself again and again.

NF