Thanks for the book recs in this thread, I am involved in hosting a small 4th get together today and some light reading will give my brain something to latch on to instead of simmering internally until I turn the 4th of July into the 4th of Shit.

I would also suggest Lies My Teacher Told me by James W. Loewen, it is a similar spirit to People’s History but might be a more approachable read without dumbing anything down. It’s been a few years since I read it but it does a great job deconstructing the civic religion sort of telling of our national myths that is typical to school textbooks.