Please feel free to remove this if it conflicts with rule 2, I was not quite sure and in case it did not, I thought the help of this community would be invaluable.
TL;DR: I need recommendations for books, articles, videos, etc (preferably sourced) about conservatism and myths.
Longer explanation:
I'm a bachelor student of history at the University of Copenhagen, and I've just started my fifth semester, which is the semester where I have to do my bachelor project. I've picked "the American conservative tradition" as my area of study, and I want to write about the creation and cultivation of myths in American conservatism as a response to the idea of humanity being, at its core, selfish and destructive.
Specifically, I was inspired by this particular line, quoted from Conservatism in America since 1930 and written by Russell Kirk, who himself is quoting Paul Elmer:
"As a negative impulse, conservatism is based on a certain distrust of human nature, believing that the immediate impulses of the heart and visions of the brain are likely to be misleading guides. [...] But this distrust of human nature is closely connected with another and more positive factor of conservatism - its trust in the controlling power of the imagination."
In essence I'm trying to write a historiographical overview of American conservatism, and especially how it has changed in more recent years, with a focus on this controlling power of the imagination. I will likely be dealing with subjects such as the American Dream, American Exceptionalism, and the idea of the American frontier.
I'm using the following books currently:
Conservatism in America since 1930 (edited by Gregory L. Schneider). New York University Press. 2003.
The American Dream (Jim Cullen). Oxford University Press. 2003.
Regeneration through Violence: the Mythology of the American Frontier 1600-1860 (Richard Slotkin). University of Oklahoma Press. 1973.
Onwards Christian Soldiers? The Religious Right in American Politics (Clyde Wilcox and Carin Robinson). Westview Press. 2011.
The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945 (George H. Nash). ISI Books. 1976.
I would take a look at Patrick Allitt's The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History, which provides a nice overview of the contested ways in which Americans have defined conservatism over their history, and his bibliography may be helpful. Adam Tate's Conservatism and Southern Intellectuals is narrower, but still helpful. Conjectures of Order is pretty lengthy and also deals exclusively with the South, but you may find that helpful as well. Field's Crisis of the Standing Order takes a narrower look at the conservative elite in the northeast during the early national period. James Broussard wrote some interesting stuff on the Federalist Party in the South, but I can't think of anything on northern Federalists off the top of my head.
It would also be worth looking at the work of Harry Jaffa, who helped define intellectual conservatism in the mid and late 20th century.
Paul Nagel's This Sacred Trust may be helpful if you want to look into American self-identification.