[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