A searing and "magisterial" (Cornel West) history of American racial
exploitation and resistance, told through the turbulent past of the city
of St. Louis. From Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014
uprising in Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And
as Walter Johnson shows in The Broken Heart of America, the city
exemplifies how imperialism, racism, and capitalism have persistently
entwined to corrupt the nation's past. St. Louis was a staging post for
Indian removal and imperial expansion, and its wealth grew on the backs
of its poor Black residents, from slavery through redlining and urban
renewal. But it was once also America's most radical city, home to
anti-capitalist immigrants, the Civil War's first general emancipation,
and the nation's first general strike--a legacy of resistance that
endures. A blistering history of a city's rise and decline, The Broken
Heart of America will forever change how we think about the United
States.