American Fantastic challenges readers to recognize an organizing myth in modern American culture’s perception of its imperialist past: “the myth of redemptive violence.” Derek J. Thiess persuasively argues that this myth serves to obscure the deep thread of Christian supremacy that underwrites America’s colonial and imperial impulse, from the early colonial period to westward expansion to the contemporary period. This American imaginary that enmeshes religion with violence is constructed in multiple contentious and productive contact zones: between genres, between cultures, and between past and present.

Thiess’s interdisciplinary study examines America’s past and present imperial projects, from the periphery of the Hawaiian Islands to the mainland core, as they proliferate in popular story forms. By interrogating American myths, legends, and fantastic narratives across an impressive array of genres, including folk narratives, science fiction, movies, and more, Thiess exposes how the “myth of redemptive violence” manifests in contemporary constructions of America’s fantastic imaginaries.