The Biggest Lie: The Prehistory of American Fascism, 1818-1915

The Biggest Lie: The Prehistory of American Fascism, 1818-1915

$39.60

Review Quotes: "[A] penetrating study... Readers will find this a striking, potent reframing of fascism as an American invention." --Publishers Weekly, Starred Review "This well-researched volume is extremely important and timely." -- Library Journal, Starred...

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Review Quotes:

"[A] penetrating study... Readers will find this a striking, potent reframing of fascism as an American invention." --Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"This well-researched volume is extremely important and timely." -- Library Journal, Starred Review

"About the madness of Trump's America, it's easy to feel: This is unprecedented. But, as Joseph Kelly brilliantly shows, it's not. And without full knowledge of that painful history, we're not going to find our way to a better, more just country. Kelly tells this story with vivid immediacy." -- Adam Hochschild, author of the NBCC and NBA finalist KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST and AMERICAN MIDNIGHT

"A sweeping and much needed work of history, Joseph Kelly's The Biggest Lie traces the roots of United States fascism not to the twentieth century but back to the first decades of the republic, particular to the expansion of the country's slave system. The Biggest Lie is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the deep historical currents shaping the United States today. It is a masterwork of historical synthesis." -- Greg Grandin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE END OF THE MYTH and AMERICA, AMÉRICA

"In this retelling of America's past, Joseph Kelly challenges the familiar narrative of a liberal society, founded on ideals of human equality, defeating the Southern elite that grew out of slavery. In Kelly's telling, the South's effort to secede was defeated in 1865, but its ideology of inequality infected the entire nation by 1915. This provocative and wonderfully written book could not be more timely." -- Don H. Doyle, author of THE CAUSE OF ALL NATIONS and THE AGE OF RECONSTRUCTION



Biographical Note:
Joseph Kelly is a professor of literature and history at the College of Charleston. He is the author of two other books on American democracy: Marooned and America's Longest Siege. He also wrote Our Joyce: From Outcast to Icon and he edits the popular Seagull Reader anthologies of stories, poems, plays, and essays. He lives in Charleston, South Carolina.

Publisher Marketing:

An eye-opening work of narrative history tracing the roots of American fascism back to the Antebellum South.

"Kelly tells this story with vivid immediacy." -ADAM HOCHSCHILD

"A sweeping and much needed work of history." -GREG GRANDIN

When American fascists suddenly goose-stepped down Main Street in the 1930s, fascism was seen by the rest of the country as a terrifying and radical new European import. It was not. It didn't come from abroad. Nor was it new or radical. The seed of American fascism was planted by elite southern planters who insisted that slavery need not be addressed in the Constitution because it would soon die out on its own.

In The Biggest Lie, Joseph Kelly chronicles fascism's deep roots in the antebellum South; its codification under Jim Crow; and, then, after the Spanish American War, its ascendency in the form of Anglo-Saxon nationalism, proposing that the nation belongs to a master-race-the original lie of American fascism. In this dark hour of American history, Kelly's gripping story reminds us that the monied elite have always exceled at deploying disinformation to bias and inflame the masses, and that there have always been courageous patriots helping us to fight our way out of darkness toward the light.



Review Citations:

  • Library Journal 04/01/2026 pg. 79 (EAN 9781639732111, Hardcover) - *Starred Review
  • Publishers Weekly 05/04/2026 (EAN 9781639732111, Hardcover) - *Starred Review

Contributor Bio:Kelly, Joseph
Joseph Kelly is a professor of literature and history at the College of Charleston. He is the author of two other books on American democracy: Marooned and America's Longest Siege. He also wrote Our Joyce: From Outcast to Icon and he edits the popular Seagull Reader anthologies of stories, poems, plays, and essays. He lives in Charleston, South Carolina.