The Wrath to Come

Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells

By: Sarah Churchwell

Narrated by: Sarah Churchwell

Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

The history America never wanted you to learn.

'The narrative took my breath away' Philippe Sands

'An extraordinarily and shockingly powerful read' Peter Frankopan

'One of the must-reads of the year' Suzannah Lipscomb

'Brilliant and provocative' Gavin Esler

Sarah Churchwell examines one of the most enduringly popular stories of all time, Gone with the Wind, to help explain the divisions ripping the United States apart today. Separating fact from fiction, she shows how histories of mythmaking have informed America's racial and gender politics, the controversies over Confederate statues, the resurgence of white nationalism, the Black Lives Matter movement, the enduring power of the American Dream, and the violence of Trumpism.

Gone with the Wind was an instant bestseller when it was published in 1936; its film version became the most successful Hollywood film of all time. Today the story's racism is again a subject of controversy, but it was just as controversial in the 1930s, foreshadowing today's debates over race and American fascism. In The Wrath to Come, Sarah Churchwell charts an extraordinary journey through 160 years of American denialism. From the Lost Cause to the romances behind the Ku Klux Klan, from the invention of the 'ideal' slave plantation to the erasure of interwar fascism, Churchwell shows what happens when we do violence to history, as collective denial turns fictions into lies, and lies into a vicious reality.

©2022 Sarah Churchwell (P)2022 Head of Zeus

understanding the myth

If we don't understand the myth, we will never understand what is happening in America today and we will never keep our democracy.

4.5 Gone with the Wind read like a satirical farce, I declare! I searched for a critique of the historical feelings, attitudes and actual perspective of Mitchell and her circle of the times and how it was seen in the following years to now. I found Churchill's critique and I was not disappointed. 4.5 stars because at times, understandably so, her spitting out of her own words became a little tiresome.

GWTW as the Bible of White Victimhood

The significance of cultural history is what it says about the society from which it comes. If Gone With the Wind were merely a subjective snapshot of a period of time in America, it could discussed and debated on its artistic merits. But it is clear that the book and subsequent film were intended to be much more than that, and sought to be considered an historical record in support of the mythical Lost Cause. So books like this succeed in grooming generations of school children into accepting lies, while focus is distracted taking down monuments to Confederates and racists. (I wouldn't call them traitors, insofar as a reasonable argument could be made that the Confederacy was defending the original intent of the Constitution, which clearly supports the institution of slavery... but that's another argument for another time).

As a result of indoctrinating the many citizens with the notion that slavery was benign, Reconstruction was carpetbagger authoritarianism (rather than what it actually was, the first instance of real democracy in the country's history), and that white Southerners were the true victims, it laid the foundation for all the race-based bigotry to follow, from the extension of Jim Crow to the Maga universe white fright. It's provides a plausible deniability, albeit rooted in racial ignorance, for those who wish to oppose efforts to combat institutional racism. By banning books speaking the truth about the history of slavery in the USA, denying the pernicious history of racist policing strategies, the bigots look to their Bibles, both spiritual and cultural, for their rationalizations. CRT and BLM are easy targets for them to simplify, demonize and attack, without taking the time for critical thinking, or empathy for that matter. But make no mistake, the vitriol spewed at CRT and BLM are rooted in the racism instilled by books and films like Gone With the Wind, Birth of a Nation, and decades of minstrel shows and quasi-minstrel portrayals in the popular culture. So, I tend to look a bit askance at those cretins who bemoan "cancelling" GWTW, when the book itself cancels virtually the entire Black African slave experience.

Most significantly, the author does an excellent job of drawing a direct line from the fascistic lies to subvert historical truth from Margaret Mitchell in 1936 to the fascistic lies to subvert democratic processes by Donald Trump and minions in 2021. Add in propagandistic clarity perfected in Nazi Germany, largely influenced by American Jim Crow laws, and the right wing, libertarian appropriation of 60s counter-culture (as detailed in a great book, Fantasyland, by Kurt Andersen), you have the perfect recipe for a 2021 fascist coup attempt by a former leader of the nation. Gone With the Wind deserves it fair share of the blame.

Minor techical note: Chapter 35 is missing. Or at least appears to be missing, as Ch. 37 succeeds Ch. 34, then is repeated again after Ch. 36. (i.e. Ch.34->37->36->37-38). The text of both "Ch.37"s are the same. It has been reported to Audible.

Missing a Chapter! Otherwise Excellent

First things first: towards the end you get the following chapters in the following order: 34-37-36-37. So chapter 35 is missing and chapter 37 is repeated. I don't know what is contained in that chapter but as it is only one chapter, I feel confident in recommending the book. It doesn't matter if you love or hate GWTW, and have or have not seen the movie or read the book. This is a book about America, the myths and the lies and the ugly truths.

One quibble and one trigger warning: The author refers to the death of George Floyd as part of a routine traffic stop. That's not actually what happened and given the prominence of his story it seems like either the author or the editor certainly should have caught that. The trigger warning is for the graphic descriptions of lynchings. I understand why they are there but they are brutal and that they are meant to upset us and make us see the truth. But if you are sensitive to violence, or if someone in your family was ever victimized by this kind of violence, it might be too much.