DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY E Kenneth C. Davis

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.But the emphasis has been on the crime and corruption.Enron is as American as apple pie.So I find myself in complete agreement with the American critic of businessmen who once attacked “men of wealth, who find the purchased politician the most efficient instrument of corruption”; men who were “the most dangerous members of the criminal class—the criminal of great wealth.” The man who spoke those words, long before Enron, Tyco, Global Crossing, and WorldCom existed, was that flaming liberal President Theodore Roosevelt.(By the way, Republican Teddy Roosevelt also attempted to get the words “In God We Trust” off American currency.He not only thought they were unconstitutional, but as a devout Christian, he considered them a sacrilege.)It is wonderful to pay lip service to a country that is supposedly dedicated to “government of the people, for the people and by the people,”but throughout American history, and certainly under our existing corporate-sponsored democracy, a good case can be made that America is and has been a government of, for and by the special interests.That was the motivating force behind the Progressive movement of the late nineteenth century, the New Deal reforms of the 1930s, the Reform Party movement of Ross Perot in the 1980s, and the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain—neither of the last two very liberal.IfIntroductionxixthere is an underlying theme here, it is that the essence of history is the constant struggle for power.The battle between those holding power—whether it be the power of money, church, land, or votes—and the have-nots—the poor, the weak, the disenfranchised, the rebellious—is one main thread in the fabric of American history.With that in mind, it is also important to realize that few social movements or other major developments in American history come from the top down.We like to think of elected officials as leaders, but in fact they often follow where the country is going.Most of the great reform movements in American history, from abolition to temperance, suffrage and the civil rights movement, usually came from the grassroots level, with politicians often dragged reluctantly to catch up with the people as they moved forward.That is a story that is all too often overlooked in our history books.And it is another important reason to study history.Far too many people believe that they have no power, and that is a dangerous idea.The power of one can be a mighty force of change.A second thread running through this and all Don’t Know Much About books is one that our schools and textbooks sadly bury.This is the impact of real people on history.At many turning points, it was the commanding presence of an individual—Washington, Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, the Roosevelts, and Susan B.Anthony, to name a few—that determined events, rather than the force of any idea or movement.Great ideals and noble causes have died for lack of a champion.At other times, the absence of a strong personality has had the reverse effect.For example, if a dominant president had emerged in the years before the Civil War, instead of the string of mediocrities who were elected, Lincoln’s emergence might have been stillborn and that deadly war averted.When I was in the sixth grade, I remember standing in front of the classroom to deliver a current events report about an election in New York City.Although I don’t remember much of what I said, I do remember that as soon as I was finished, my teacher humiliated me.I can’t recall her exact words, but she dressed me down in front of my classmates.She told me that I had taken an important news story and made it dull and unimportant.I don’t know why she picked on me.But I was red-faced and ashamed.I learned two important lessons that day that I have tried never to xxIntroductionforget.The first is that teachers should never humiliate children who stand in front of a classroom.Embarrassment is no way to get kids to learn.And the second lesson? She was probably right.If I was going to talk about an important news story, I had better make it interesting.And that is what I attempt to do in Don’t Know Much About History.The only way to make history and politics interesting, I have long believed, is by telling stories of real people doing real things.Over the years, as I have spoken to people around the country on talk radio, in bookstores and lecture halls and classrooms, the overwhelming response of far too many Americans to history is a single word—“BORING!” For years, we have sent students to school and burdened them with the most tedious textbooks imaginable—deadly dull books written by one set of professors to be read by another set of professors—which completely suck the life out of this most human of subjects.There is very often an underside, or at least a human side, to the story.Traditionally, we have wanted our heroes to be pure and unsul-lied.But the greatest heroes of the American epic are still people—often flawed people with deep contradictions.The simple view of men like Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt as beatified heroes of the American epic doesn’t always stand up to scrutiny.The American story is not that simple.There are moments in our past that can breed feelings of cynicism and disgust.Yet there are other moments that evoke pride and admiration.But to me, it is the humanity of these people, and the fact that they accomplished great things in spite of their flaws and contradictions, that makes them so fascinating.Generally speaking, Americans have behaved worse than our proudest boosters proclaim.America did not write the book on “ethnic cleansing,” but we did contribute some horrific chapters.That is why this history focuses on such moments as the Trail of Tears, Wounded Knee, and My Lai, among many others.On the other hand, Americans have also shown a capacity to be better than the worst claims of their detractors.American has no monopoly on virtue or villainy.Every country has its share of nightmarish moments it would like to forget or erase.But the job of this historian is to keep these unpleasant memories alive.A bit more than two hundred years old now, America is still young in the broad sense of history, even though the pace of history has accel-Introductionxxierated radically as the twentieth century techno-revolution has transformed media, travel, and communications.(It boggles my mind to consider that when this book was first written, fax machines, cell phones, and the Internet barely existed for most Americans—including me!) The history of this country is not necessarily a smooth continuum moving toward a perfectly realized republic.More accurately, history has acted like a pendulum with long swings creating a flux in one direction or another [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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