Roberto Sirvent and Danny Haiphong present American Exceptionalism and American Innocence

Harvard Book Store welcomes Professor of Political and Social Ethics at Hope International University, ROBERTO SIRVENT, and activist, journalist, and scholar DANNY HAIPHONG for a discussion of their new book, American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A Peoples’ History of Fake News—From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror.

About American Exceptionalism and American Innocence

Did the U.S. really “save the world” in World War II? Should black athletes stop protesting and show more gratitude for what America has done for them? Are wars fought to spread freedom and democracy? Or is this all fake news?

American Exceptionalism and American Innocence examines the stories we’re told that lead us to think that the U.S. is a force for good in the world, regardless of slavery, the genocide of indigenous people, and more than a century’s worth of imperialist war that the U.S. has wrought on the planet.

Sirvent and Haiphong detail just what Captain America’s shield tells us about the pretensions of U.S. foreign policy, how Angelina Jolie and Bill Gates engage in humanitarian imperialism, and why the Broadway musical Hamilton is a monument to white supremacy.