According to many in corporate media, disinformation is a serious and rising threat to democracy. One especially harmful way in which this crisis could manifest, progressive American elites fear, is in the study of history. Myth America, a new essay collection edited by CNN contributor Julian Zelizer and serial plagiarist Kevin Kruse (both Princeton historians), seeks to tackle this problem by debunking the “myths” of American history.
This potentially worthy — if done properly and fairly — mission is, in this case, a failure. The book does not debunk any myths; it merely promulgates different, radically progressive ones. The book’s stunning lack of self-awareness is clear from the introduction, where the editors describe their ideological opponents as feeling “freer to write a history that begins with its conclusions and works backward to find — or invent, if need be — some sort of evidence that will seem to support it.” As it turns out, this statement accurately describes Myth America.
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