A Renegade History of the United States

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This provocative perspective onAmericas history claims that the countrys personalitywas defined not by the ideals ofthe elites and intellectuals, but by those who throughout have lived on the fringes of society historyslaves, immigrants, gangsters, and others who challenged the conventions of their day.“Raucous, profane, and thrillingly original, Thaddeus Russells A Renegade History of the United States turns the myths of the ‘American character on their heads with a rare mix of wit, scholarship, and storytelling flair” (Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad Is Good for You and The Invention of Air ).An all-new, stunning, and controversial story of the United States: It was not “good” citizens who established American liberty, declares Thaddeus Russell, but “immoral” and “degraded” people on the fringes of society whose subversive lifestyles legitimized the taboo and made America the land of the free.In vivid portraits of renegades and their “respectable” adversaries, Russell shows that the nations history has been driven by clashes between those interested in preserving social order and those more interested in pursuing their own desires. The more these accidental revolutionariesdrunkards, prostitutes, gangsters, unassimilated immigrants, “bad” blackspersevered, the more American society changed for the better. This is not the history taught in textbooks or classroomsthis renegade book will upend everything you believe about the American past.

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