All of our national delusions should be exposed, but I’m not sure all should be excised. When you face down so many myths in quick succession, the values that underpin the effort grow sharper, even if the value of myths themselves grows murkier.

The book, which the editors describe as an “intervention” in long-running public discussions on American politics, economics and culture, is an authoritative and fitting contribution to the myth-busting genre - authoritative for the quality of the contributions and the scope of its enterprise, fitting because it captures in one volume the possibilities and pitfalls of the form. These questions came up frequently as I read “ Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past,” a collection published this month and edited by Kevin M. This regular exercise forced me to wrestle with the form’s basic challenges: How entrenched and widespread must a misconception be to count as an honest-to-badness myth? What is the difference between a conclusive debunking and a conflicting interpretation? And who is qualified to upend a myth or disqualified from doing so?

When I served as the editor of The Washington Post’s Sunday Outlook section several years ago, I assigned and edited dozens of “5 Myths” articles in which experts tackled the most common fallacies surrounding subjects in the news. I can claim some experience in this effort, not as a debunker of myths but as a clearinghouse for them. Puncturing these myths is a matter of duty and an assertion of expertise. They must be hunted and destroyed so that the real story can assume its proper perch. In the worlds of journalism and history, however, myths are viewed as pernicious creatures that obscure more than they illuminate. Their impossibility is part of their appeal few would pause to debunk the physics of Icarus’s wings before warning against flying too close to the sun. In the realm of folklore and ancient traditions, myths are tales forever retold for their wisdom and underlying truths.

Myth america kruse