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NIGHTLY READING THREAD: Welcome to Edition #77 of #GMGReads. Every night through this weird time, I'm tweeting out a list of my five favorite books around a general theme—and a link to an indie bookstore where you can order them online....
The events of this last week have underscored that America has a more complicated (and less all-around noble) history than the story we like to tell in elementary school. Here are my favorite surveys of American history, all available at @magersandquinn in troubled Minneapolis:
1) Jill Lepore's THESE TRUTHS is a massive book, but arguably one of the most important of this last decade—a frank assessment of a nation whose history on civil rights, human rights, and democracy is a lot more checkered than we like to admit: https://www.magersandquinn.com/product_info?products_id=8081590&isbn_id=10856494
2) America today will make more sense when you read Kurt Andersen's ( @KBAndersen) FANTASYLAND. Our current "fake news" era is more the norm than the exception, from the Salem witch trials to PT Barnum, America's long been home to fantasists and fabulists: https://www.magersandquinn.com/product_info?products_id=79881888&isbn_id=9907142
3) Colin Woodward's ( @WoodardColin) AMERICAN NATIONS argues remarkably convincingly that we're not a united land, split "only" by red-blue, but actually eleven distinct regions, with identifiable characteristics and unique values: https://www.magersandquinn.com/product_info?products_id=2804282&isbn_id=6278444
4) John Steele Gordon's AN EMPIRE OF WEALTH https://www.magersandquinn.com/product_info?products_id=1008577&isbn_id=3103045 and Michael Lind's LAND OF PROMISE both put our nation's economic desires—and our intrinsic greed—as the center of our national drive: https://www.magersandquinn.com/product_info?products_id=2884610&isbn_id=6385969
5) Heather Cox Richardson's ( @hc_richardson) HOW THE SOUTH WON THE CIVIL WAR follows how the nation's move westward kept alive the ideology defeated by the north's Civil War victory, taking root in the land of Barry Goldwater, and leading up to now: https://www.magersandquinn.com/product_info?products_id=7945952
Those are tonight's #GMGReads. What are your favorite histories of the United States? What books have helped you understand our country? What did you read this weekend? Share! #avidreadersunite
