WORLD CITIZEN SERIES
America’s Myth of Goodness
by Michael G. Katakis
Pamphlet with French flaps
Winter 2026
Language: English
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Ordering information to come
“Myth” is a long-term advertising campaign that sells a fiction that over time takes on an illusion of truth. And yet the shadows of what has been nag at the national conscience like an unwelcome stranger at our collective doors. A belief in such myths is a kind of sleepwalking that does not require thought. In fact, myth is preferable for anyone who does not wish to think at all. One need only parrot slogans like “Make America great again” or “All men are created equal.” Repeating them succeeds in drowning out, for a time, a complete history, allowing the perpetrators and the willful ignorant an escape hatch from the truth; but, just like the Wizard of Oz, the illusion only works if you don’t look behind the curtain.
Michael G. Katakis is the author of a number of books, including Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts from a Life, Despatches (special limited edition), The Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, A Thousand Shards of Glass: There Is Another America, Traveller: Observations From an American in Exile and Photographs and Words (with Kris L. Hardin). His work has been translated into multiple languages and his writing and photography have been collected by a wide range of institutions, including The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC; the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Library in London; and Stanford University’s Special Collections Department. In 1999, Michael was elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He lives in England and France.