* Myths America Lives By *

Myths America Lives By

Richard T. Hughes

Foreword by Robert N. Bellah

"The nature and consequences of the stories America tells itself"

Now in paperback, Myths America Lives By identifies five key myths that lie at the heart of the American experience --

The Myths:

of the Chosen Nation,

of Nature's Nation,

of the Christian Nation,

of the Millennial Nation,

and

of the Innocent Nation.

Richard T. Hughes argues that the Innocent Nation myth prevented many Americans from understanding, or even discussing, the complex motivations of the 9/11 terrorists.

Drawing on a range of dissenting voices, Hughes shows that by canonizing these seemingly harmless myths of national identity as absolute truths, America risks undermining the sweepingly egalitarian promise of the Declaration of Independence.

Hughes locates the roots of each myth in a different period of America's development, and from each of these periods he finds stirring critiques offered by marginalized commentators--especially African Americans and Native Americans--who question the predominant myth of their age.

Myths America Lives By demonstrates that Americans must rethink these myths in the spirit of extraordinary humility if the United States is to fulfill its true promise as a nation.

Myths America Lives By is a dialogue between the mainstream mythmakers and the many critics--including Martin Luther King Jr., Ida B. Wells, Frederick Douglass, Black Elk, Anna J. Cooper, Booker T. Washington, Malcom X, Angela Davis, and W. E. B. Du Bois--whose dissent, rather than being un-American, was often grounded in a patriotic belief in the "self-evident" equality of America's fundamental creed.

Richard T. Hughes is Distinguished Professor, Religion Division, at Pepperdine University. He is the author or co-author, or editor of more than a dozen books including Illusions of Innocence: Protestant Primitivism in America, 1630-1875.

http://www.press.uillinois.edu/f04/hughes.html

http://www.google.com/search