Sarah Churchwell is an American cultural historian who has spent years unpicking the stories the United States tells about itself — from Gone with the Wind to The Great Gatsby — and noticing, with growing unease, how those myths echo in today’s politics. A professor of American literature and public understanding of the humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, she argues that the American Revolution is “unfinished business” and for the last 40 years America has been running “an undeclared political experiment” and Donald Trump is “a symptom of what’s going wrong with America.”
We trace the history from slavery to widespread segregation – not just in the south – and laws which the Nazis thought “went a little bit too far for them”, and on to judicial coups.
So, what of us? Did America learn its white supremacism at our knee? Are we now following their playbook wrapping our imperial fantasies in Union Jacks, poppies and Dunkirk. And are we now learning “the lesson of Hungary”?
Please do check out my latest book, A Dead Cat On Your Table – available online and in all good book shops.
@peteryork.bsky.social
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