Accidental Gods: On Men Unwittingly Turned Divine by Anna Della Subin

A wildly entertaining account of actual "accidental gods"—humans venerated as deities, usually in their lifetimes and often under protest. (Think Christopher Columbus, James Cook, Douglas MacArthur, Haile Selassie, Gandhi, various petty colonial administrators, and, tragically, Donald Trump.) Like spaghetti strands twining around a twirled fork, the stories of these happenstance gods wind into one big bite: the story of how whiteness became divine, the ultimate false idol to overthrow.