- Woods, Thomas E., Jr.
The Politically Incorrect Guide
to American History.
Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2004.
ISBN 0-89526-047-6.
-
You know you're getting old when events you lived through start
showing up in history textbooks! Upon reaching that milestone (hey, it
beats the alternative), you'll inevitably have the same
insight which occurs whenever you see media coverage of an event at
which you were personally present or read a popular account of a topic
which you understand in depth—“Hey, it wasn't like that at
all!”…and then you begin to wonder about
all the coverage of things about which you don't have direct
knowledge.
This short book (246 pages of widely-leaded text with broad margins
and numerous sidebars and boxed quotations, asides, and
recommendations for further reading) provides a useful antidote to
the version of U.S. history currently taught in government
brainwashing institutions, written from a libertarian/conservative
standpoint. Those who have made an effort to educate themselves on
the topics discussed will find little here they haven't already
encountered, but those whose only knowledge of U.S. history comes
from contemporary textbooks will encounter many eye-opening “stubborn
facts” along with source citations to independently
verify them (the excellent bibliography is ten pages long).
The topics covered appear to have been selected based on the degree to which
the present-day collectivist academic party line is at variance with the
facts (although, as Woods points out, in many cases historians
specialising in given areas themselves diverge from textbook
accounts). This means that while “hot spots” such as the causes of
the Civil War, the events leading to U.S. entry in World War I, and
the reasons for the Great Depression and the rôle of New Deal programs
in ending it are discussed, many others are omitted entirely; the
book is suitable as a corrective for those who know an outline of
U.S. history but not as an introduction for those college graduates
who believe that FDR defeated Santa Anna at the Little Big Horn.
September 2005 