Posted on December 9, 2018 by PLT Staff

From the publisher:

Six myths lie at the heart of the American experience. Taken as aspirational, four of those myths remind us of our noblest ideals, challenging us to realize our nation’s promise while galvanizing the sense of hope and unity we need to reach our goals. Misused, these myths allow for illusions of innocence that fly in the face of white supremacy, the primal American myth that stands at the heart of all the others.

In this revised second edition of his celebrated work, Richard T. Hughes delves anew into the thought of black critics dissatisfied with America’s betrayal of its foundational beliefs. Speaking for people often marginalized in American life, thinkers like Malcolm X, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Yolanda Pierce, Carol Anderson, Charles Blow, Toni Morrison, and Martin Luther King Jr. offer important perspectives on African American experiences, the pervasiveness of white supremacy, and the ways America can embrace, and deliver on, its egalitarian promise. Hughes’s updated text and new introduction investigate past and present intersections of white supremacy with our shared American mythology.

• Publication Information
• Author: Richard T. Hughes
• Publication Type: Book
• Publisher:University of Illinois Press
• Date of Publication:September 2018
• Purchase: Buy this publication »