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Jared Yates Sexton is
the author of The Man They Wanted Me to Be and The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore. His
political writing has appeared in publications
including The New York Times, The New Republic, Politico, and
Salon.com. Sexton is also the author of three collections of
fiction and is an associate professor of creative writing at
Georgia Southern University.
From writer and political analyst Jared Yates Sexton comes a journey through the history of the United States, from the nation’s founding to the twenty-first century, which examines and debunks the American myths we’ve always told ourselves. In recent years, Americans have faced a deluge of
horrifying developments in politics and culture: stolen elections,
fascist rallies, families torn apart and locked away. A common
refrain erupts at each new
atrocity: This isn’t who we are.
In American Rule, Jared
Yates Sexton upends those convenient fictions by laying bare the
foundational myths at the heart of our collective American
imagination. From the very origins of this nation, Americans in
power have abused and subjugated others; enabling that corruption
are the many myths of American exceptionalism and steadfast values,
which are fed to the public and repeated across generations.
Working through each era of American growth and change, Sexton
weaves together the origins and perpetuation of these narratives
still in the public memory, and the acts we have chosen to
forget. Stirring, deeply researched, and disturbingly
familiar, American Rule is
a call to examine our own misconceptions of what it means, and has
always meant, to be an American.