Erasing Truth: What Jason Stanley Gets Right—and Misses—About the Fight Over History

Jason Stanley’s Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future arrives at a moment when the past is under siege—not from the people trying to teach it honestly, but from those desperate to bury it beneath myth, grievance, and authoritarian nostalgia. In this short, accessible book, Stanley argues that the control of historical narrative is not peripheral to authoritarianism—it’s central to it. That’s a vital point, and one that more Americans, especially educators and civic leaders, need to hear.

But here’s where we need to get precise: Stanley is not a historian. He’s a philosopher and theorist of propaganda. And while his work is urgent and often insightful, Erasing History suffers from the same flaw that runs through much of the current crisis discourse—it treats history as a story we once got right, and are now in danger of losing.

That’s not how this works.

From a public historian’s perspective, the core problem isn’t that we’re erasing history. It’s that we’ve never told it honestly in the first place. What’s happening now—the censorship, the book bans, the violent backlash against teaching race, slavery, gender, and resistance—isn’t the erasure of some once-truthful narrative. It’s the doubling-down on a lie that’s been national gospel since Reconstruction. A lie built into textbooks, monuments, and public memory.

Stanley’s book is strongest when he focuses on that propaganda function—how authoritarian regimes manipulate the past to manufacture identity and justify violence. He draws clear lines between contemporary right-wing movements in the U.S. and historical fascist regimes in Europe, showing how a falsified history becomes a weapon. And he’s right to call out the political operatives and media figures who weaponize “erasure” to protect white innocence. This is not just culture war theater. It’s authoritarian strategy.

But too often, Stanley relies on abstract generalities or familiar talking points, rather than diving into the real terrain where this battle is playing out—state legislatures, school boards, heritage sites, and textbook review committees. The people fighting for honest history—Black educators, Indigenous scholars, public historians, and local activists—have been in this struggle for generations. Their voices are mostly absent here.

And that’s the missed opportunity. Because the title Erasing History implies a defense of memory. But public historians know the truth: this fight isn’t about memory—it’s about power. Whose story gets told, whose pain gets acknowledged, whose freedom is imagined. This is not a theoretical crisis. It’s happening in real time, with real consequences, for real people. And any book that talks about “erasing history” but doesn’t center those who’ve been erased from it in the first place is only doing half the work.

Still, Stanley’s book can be a useful entry point for readers just waking up to the stakes. It’s readable, accessible, and forceful. It gives language to what many feel instinctively: that the past is being manipulated to justify the present. But to fully understand this moment, readers will need to go beyond Stanley—and into the work of those who’ve long been naming the lie and fighting for the truth.

Start with Clint Smith, Tiya Miles, Erica Dunbar, and Kelly Lytle Hernández. Follow Cheyney McKnight, Monique Moses, and Abbey Heffer online. Visit the community-led sites that tell the truth, even when it costs them funding or political support. That’s where history is happening. Not in the halls of power. But in the hands of people refusing to let it be stolen again.