A review by daaan
Behold, America: A History of America First and the American Dream by Sarah Churchwell

5.0

A really quite disturbing history of the phrases "American Dream" and in particular "America First". The sections on the American dream aren't too controversial and on the whole show that the term american dream has held a wide array of different meanings. America First has always and only been a term for nationalists, it's tied up with every major fascist group in American history. The way this book is written, with quote after quote really drives home how sinister the term is. It's also made me appreciate that the terms "hyphenated" and "100 per cent" are also incredibly loaded terms in American history. I'd never really appreciated Nordicism, the mistrust of Catholics, in particular Irish and Italian, until reading this. The ending shows the overall purpose of the book, to act as a platform for explicitly criticising the Trump administration. Everybody should read this, it's scary stuff.