Diana West

With the publication of my second book, "American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation's Character," I am looking forward to a vigorous debate about my findings, which led me to conclude that far too much of our history (and thus our understanding of ourselves as a people) has been based on a series of Big Lies promoted by an infiltrated, penetrated and subverted US government, from the the days of FDR forward. The admittedly sweeping nature of my claims convinced my editor, St. Martin's Press's Michael Flamini, to include every single one of my 961 endnotes in the book -- just to make sure people could see the same evidence I did. I am a journalist, not a historian, although writing a syndicated weekly newspaper column since 1999 makes me one of those first-drafters of history. Indeed, I came very close to completing a History major at my alma mater, Yale, until changing my major to English after deciding I preferred the fiction of the Ages to the politics of the History Department. After about twenty years as a journalist (and about 15 as the mother of twins), my first book, "The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization" came out in 2007, also with St Martin's Press, and also with editor Michael Flamini. Shortly after I began researching and writing "American Betrayal" back in 2009, I began to feel as though I were forging a new genre, "investigative history." As I mined the discarded documents and memoirs and came across new (to me) historical figures and even heroes of the past, I realized I was engaging in an effort to reclaim what stands as a lost history -- our lost history. There is more to find.