I have American history books dating from the turn of the 20th century, and they are as "patriotic" and "pro-American" as all get-out. Amerindians are savages, the Chinese are a plague, but fairly decent cheap labor for the railroads, women are invisible, blacks are children redeemed by benevolent white father figures, and the South is populated by a race of noble losers. Oh, and labor unions are a bunch of troublemakers who ought to be putting in overtime.

And the Spanish had it coming to them. (The Spanish-American War is the last entry in most of these books.)

We are now in a period of overcorrection for those excesses, marked by prominent revisionism. Eventually we will get to a place where our decency and talent will be recognized and our mistakes and brutality likewise. We will also have a more faithful and varied ethnic landscape in our historical record, which will be a good thing as it will reflect the contributions to our polyglot culture of all the peoples who came here.

I believe that part of the reason children don't know about historical figures in the near past is because their families no longer talk to them about such things. The history of the world is long; the school year isn't long enough to accomodate it all. We as parents must take some responsibility for our children's education and incorporate it into family life.

The distant past is actually much easier to teach because you don't get someone's grandfather calling up the school to yell. All the different viewpoints of the distant past are based on scholarship rather than live witnesses, and are therefore less personal, even though the disagreements can get rather heated in their remote, scholarly fashion. Besides, if you don't know about Egypt, how is the story of the Passover going to make any sense to you? What will you make of Aida? What's with that funny triangle with the eye on top that's printed on the money? The value of some knowledge isn't obvious on its face.

The trouble with criticism of the kind you are reading is, the authors think that this is the first time this has ever happened. It isn't. Look how long it has taken to have an honest discussion of the role of slavery in the foundation of the Republic. In some areas in the historic record we are still fighting the Civil War. The cycle is self-correcting, because we still have free access to information and we are allowed to debate it in public.

The Russians know who won the Cold War? I doubt it. I would be surprised if their historical record will recover from the distortions of the Soviet government anytime within the next 100 years.

Regards--
Mary Anne