HISTORICAL AMNESIA
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James Joyner | Friday, May 16, 2003 |
David McCullough, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, believes political correctness and bad history textbooks are a serious threat to the Republic:
“For a free, self-governing people, something more than a vague familiarity with history is essential if we are to hold onto and sustain our freedom. But I don’t think history should ever be made to seem like some musty, unpleasant pill to be swallowed solely for our own civic good.“History, let us agree, can be an immense source of pleasure. For almost anyone with the normal human allotment of curiosity and an interest in people, it is a field day,” he said.
In an earlier meeting with reporters, Mr. McCullough said elementary, middle and high school students are bored by dreadful history textbooks that embrace multiculturalism and cultural equivalence in order to be politically correct.
“They are deadly,” he said of the history textbooks used at all levels. “It’s as if they were designed to kill anyone’s interest in history rather than encourage it. And if you were told you have to go home tonight and read this book for two hours, you would say in your heart of hearts, what did I do wrong today that I’m being so punished?”
Sadly, it’s hard to dispute this assessment.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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