Big Books of 2026
Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History

Questions About Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History

by Kurt Andersen (Goodreads Author)

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Besides John Brown, does U.S. history offer any fantasy as extreme as young people offering to become jihadis and martyrs. blow themselves up so they can go to heaven?
Chris Plenty. The fantasy on the part of white Europeans that viewed Native Americans as ungodly savages, if not “Satan’s soldiers,” started a three-centuri…morePlenty. The fantasy on the part of white Europeans that viewed Native Americans as ungodly savages, if not “Satan’s soldiers,” started a three-centuries-long campaign of genocide against them. Similar religion-based fantasies were used to justify the enslavement and brutal treatment of millions of Africans. The level of the atrocities committed against non-whites in this country could have only been motivated by beliefs just as twisted or "extreme" as those motivating more familiar contemporary examples.(less)
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