From political slugfests to classroom battles, historian Marc Egnal talks with INET’s Lynn Parramore about the need for a new approach to our national story.

In his new book Challenging the Myths of U.S. History, historian Marc Egnal takes aim at the stories Americans like to tell themselves -- on both the right and the left.

He argues that America’s path has been shaped less by abstract ideals and more by the economic and territorial ambitions of the upper class. Racism, he says, wasn’t an unfortunate byproduct, but deeply woven into that drive for expansion. Egnal takes aim at both ends of the political spectrum: he challenges MAGA efforts to whitewash the uglier parts of history, but also critiques the “liberal synthesis” -- the familiar story that admits past wrongs but still frames the U.S. as steadily marching toward freedom and progress.

Egnal’s take on U.S. history lays bare the roots of today’s chaos — political dysfunction, rising violence, Trump’s staying power, and the economic pressures Democrats keep missing. In a conversation with the Institute for New Economic Thinking’s Lynn Parramore, he breaks down how the past still drives the battles shaping America now.

Lynn Parramore: You argue that America's development was driven less by abstract ideals like liberty and more by the economic interests of its elite -- especially their pursuit of growth and expansion. How does this challenge the narrative of American exceptionalism?

Marc Egnal: American exceptionalism meshes nicely with the “liberal synthesis,” the story that people learn in school. The United States, like many countries, has its own myths. The U.S. myths go back to the “City on a Hill” and John Winthrop -- the whole idea that it stands alone, apart from other nations. The country’s history, as it's taught and understood, really circulates around these myths.

Textbooks reinforce this outlook and point to a few high-minded documents as the key to America’s past. The Declaration of Independence is ennobled, the Gettysburg Address is celebrated. Those dots are connected to shape the narrative of the United States as a country guided by high ideals, more so than other nations are. It’s the country of the Statue of Liberty.

While that's not an absolute fabrication, it is a myth. It's not the substance of what actually went on.

LP: You stress that historians should ground their work in evidence, not political agendas. How does that principle apply to today’s debates over how schools teach history, especially on race, inequality, and national identity?

ME: Starting in the 1960s and continuing into the 1990s, the liberal synthesis emerged. That’s the idea that America has faced problems in areas like race, foreign policy, inequality, and the position of women, but bit by bit, progress prevailed. We’ve addressed these issues through two waves of feminism, the Civil Rights Movement, and so on.

LP: The arc of the American story bends toward justice.

ME: Exactly. I offer a critique of that retelling from one perspective, while MAGA and Trump approach it from a very different one. What angers MAGA is the uncomfortable fact that America had aspects as nasty as racism and slavery, and that many Southerners (and others) actively defended it.

The demand that we accept, or even honor, Confederate leaders and name military bases after them is their response to that history. They brush aside rebellion and racism. But if you look at professional historians -- the members of the Organization of American Historians or the American Historical Association -- almost uniformly, they reject the MAGA/Trump perspective as a distortion of the past.

At the same time, I argue that the liberal synthesis has its shortcomings too.

LP: Let’s talk about those limits. Take the Civil War -- how does the liberal synthesis explain its causes and what each side was fighting for? Where does it fall short?

ME: The liberal synthesis sums up the cause of the Civil War in a single word: slavery. It’s primarily framed as a moral conflict. The North opposed slavery on ethical grounds, while the South defended it. The war is seen as the result of a fundamental moral disagreement between the two sides.

Overwhelmingly, professional historians adhere to that view. They reject the state's rights explanation. I don't accept the state's rights view either, but the idea that the North went to war because of a moral revulsion against slavery doesn't stand up to the facts. The abolitionists were a small, reviled group in the North. And when the North went to war in April 1861, Lincoln was willing to accept a 13th Amendment -- not the one we know that ended slavery, but one that would have constitutionally protected slavery where it already existed.

LP: And support for slavery wasn’t confined to the South -- many New Yorkers are surprised to learn that the city’s mayor once advocated secession, given the city’s deep financial ties to the South, especially through the cotton trade.

ME: Yes. A good example of the play of economic interests.

LP: You point out that a key goal of the North in the Civil War was to build a strong, federally-backed industrial state. Is that mission is still shaping our politics and economy today?

ME: Absolutely. Understanding the Civil War as driven more by economic goals than by a commitment to ending slavery helps us see how those priorities still shape American politics and the economy today.

While emancipation became a wartime strategy -- through the preliminary and final Emancipation Proclamations -- the North was never deeply committed to Black rights. Even though 90% of free Black people lived in the North, most northern states denied them the right to vote, except in parts of New England. That lack of commitment made it easy for the North to abandon Reconstruction.

Racism was intertwined with the North’s goals of economic and territorial expansion. From the founding of the country, the Constitution was a compromise with slave states. And during and after the Civil War, the North prioritized building a strong industrial nation over securing rights for Black Americans.

After the war, the northern-led Congress shifted focus: federal troops were withdrawn from the South and redeployed westward against Native Americans, and later into cities to suppress labor movements. The income tax used to fund the war, one of the few progressive measures, was repealed, but massive federal spending continued for railroads and infrastructure. Freed people received almost no land, while railroads were granted millions of acres.

There are striking quotes from African Americans at the time, noting that there was nothing for them, but everything for the Union Pacific Railroad. That legacy still echoes in the structure of our politics and economy today.

LP: See any parallels between the historical use of federal troops to serve elite economic interests and what we’re witnessing today?

ME: Well, the movement of troops into Los Angeles or Portland or Chicago is not there for economic growth. It's there because of an animus towards certain people. There are continuities and contradictions. During Reconstruction federal troops protected the freedpeople. Under Trump, the federal presence is directed against immigrants who do not have full citizenship, even if they have been in the country for decades, and are law-abiding, tax-payers with American-born children.

LP: Might that animus toward certain people ultimately serve the interests of the wealthy today?

ME: Good question. I actually see Trump as a departure from the economic strategies of both Democrats and Republicans before him. For decades, you could argue that much of what was happening, despite the problems, still tied back to promoting economic growth. But with Trump, that connection breaks down.

Take race, for example. I don’t think Trump’s policies on race or immigration actually further growth.

His tariffs, for instance, haven’t helped the economy. His aggressive stance on immigration has likely hurt it. Same with the direction of his tax policies. So unlike earlier periods, where elite interests and economic expansion were clearly linked, under Trump that link becomes much harder to see.

LP: So you think that the story of American growth and expansion is taking a turn?

ME: It has definitely taken a turn. I’m usually one of the first to look for economic motives behind foreign and domestic policy, and you can find them throughout much of U.S. history. If we’re talking about FDR, TR, or many other presidents, their actions often aligned with promoting economic growth and national power.

But with Trump, so much of what he does runs counter to that. His policies frequently contradict the very goals that would strengthen America economically.

LP: What about policies that may hurt the broader economy but may benefit a small, well-connected group? Some might point to crypto as an example.

ME: It certainly very much benefits the Trump family, and it’s part of this growing divergence between what's good for the country economically and what benefits a small, wealthy segment of society.

Take a traditional company like General Motors. I’m in Canada, and as we Canadians know, auto parts and vehicles cross the border repeatedly