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.| Cover Title Copyright Contents Foreword to the First Edition Foreword to the Second Edition Acknowledgments The Great American Myths and a Different American Future The Myth of the Chosen Nation: The Colonial Period The Myth of Nature's Nation: The Revolutionary Period The Myth of the Christian Nation: The Early National Period The Myth of the Millennial Nation: The Early National Period The Mythic Dimensionsof American Capitalism: The Gilded Age The Myth of the Innocent Nation: The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries Conclusion Index |"This book is very powerful and has the potential of contributing to the healing of American culture with respect to race and equity." —Stone-Campbell Journal
"It takes a whole lot of courage for white theologians and scholars to speak the truth about race. If we had more white theologians and religion scholars like Hughes who would break their silence about white supremacy and face it for what it is, we—together—could make a better world." — James H. Cone, author of The Cross and the Lynching Tree

"The American national story is a myth, built on a series of myths that Richard Hughes reveals in this critical book. Myths America Lives By is a book we all need in order to understand ourselves, to understand our nation, to understand White supremacy."—Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
|Richard T. Hughes is a professor emeritus at both Pepperdine University and Messiah College. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of more than a dozen books including Illusions of Innocence: Protestant Primitivism in America, 1630-1875 and Christian America and the Kingdom of God.