Published Friday
February 28, 2003

C. Bradley Thompson: Historians pervert U.S. history

BY C. BRADLEY THOMPSON


 



The writer, author of "John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty," is chairman of the Department of History and Political Science at Ashland University in Ohio and senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif.

It is now obvious that American children know very little about the history of their own nation. Last year, the U.S. Department of Education released its History Report Card. The results were predictably awful: 57 percent of high school seniors flunked even a basic knowledge of American history, and only 10 percent tested at grade level.

What is less obvious - and more dangerous - is that the history they do know is utterly subversive of American culture and values.

I recently attended the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, the nation's largest, most influential organization of academic historians. What goes on at this meeting eventually makes its way into your child's classroom. I was shocked by what I saw and heard.

Of the roughly 200 panels, there was virtually nothing on subjects such as the American Revolution, the Civil War or America's involvement in the two world wars. Instead, there were dozens of papers on subjects ranging from the banal to the bizarre and perverse.

Participants were subjected to presentations on topics such as "Meditations on a Coffee Pot: Visual Culture and Spanish America, 1520-1820," "The Joys of Cooking: Ideologies of Housework in Early Modern England" or "Body, Body, Burning Bright: Cremation in Victorian America."

But without question the dominant theme of the conference was sex. Historians at America's best universities are obsessed with it.

One historian from an Ivy League college delivered a paper on "'Strong Hard Filth' and 'the Aroma of Washington Square': Art, Homosexual Life, and Postal Service Censorship in the Ulysses Obscenity Trial of 1921." Another scholar from Berkeley spoke on "Solitary Self/Solitary Sex." And one spoke on "Constructing Masculinity: Homosexual Sodomy, Ethnicity, and the Politics of Penetrative Manhood in Early Modern Spain."

But historians' obsession with sex is the least of their vices. Academic history has become thoroughly egalitarian. It seeks to elevate the history of ordinary men and women doing ordinary things at the expense of great men and women doing great things. Thus, the history department at Harvard University no longer offers a course on the American Revolution. In its place, it now offers a course on the history of midwives and quilting.

Worse yet, mainstream historians are driven by a pernicious political agenda that seeks to elevate "group rights" over individual rights. By sanctifying the stories of oppressed and "marginalized" groups, historians subtly indoctrinate students with the idea that justice and rights are synonymous with one's group identity, be it one's race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.

What of America's founding ideals, such as the principle of inalienable individual rights? Ultimately, academic history is driven by a hatred of America and its ideals. It is common these days for students to be told that the colonization of North America represents an act of genocide; that the Founding Fathers were racist, sexist, "class- ist," "homophobic," Euro-centric bigots; that the winning of the American West was an act of capitalist pillage; that the so-called "Robber Barons" forced widows and orphans into the streets; that hidden in the closets of most white Americans is a robe and hood.

To help put over this slander, historians dissolve U.S. history into a hodgepodge of trivial stories about politically correct victim groups. No wonder our children no longer learn the truly important facts about their nation's history.

There was a time, not long ago, when students were required to study the great events, magnanimous statesmen, brave warriors, brilliant inventors and ingenious industrialists of American history. There was a time when American students knew in intimate detail the heroic story of the American Revolution and the tragedy of the Civil War.

American children once learned about honesty from George Washington, justice from Thomas Jefferson, integrity from John Adams, independence from Daniel Boone, oratory from Daniel Webster, ingenuity from Thomas Edison, perseverance from the Wright Brothers and courage from Sergeant York. They learned and memorized the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address. American history was taught as a grand story of epic scale and heroic accomplishment. America's history was the history of freedom.

Today, our children are being taught to be ashamed of America. By denigrating the principles and great deeds of America's past and dethroning its heroes, today's college professors are destroying in our youths the proper reverence for the ideals for which this nation stands. And a nation that hates itself cannot last.
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...I am curious as to other people's reactions.

I think that C. Bradley Thompson is a typical idiot idealogue concerned with promoting the myth of a pure
and false american history.
H. Zinn had some things to say that are or were never covered in history class. Even when it was taught.
But you do have to dig into it to pierce the apple pie
crust to find the worms.
"- the so-called "Robber Barons"
forced widows and orphans into the streets-"
This cracked me up. Like JD Rockefeller never had anything
in his heart but love for the people and fair business
practices.
These jerks shouldn't worry, they don't even have to lie about history anymore. Is isn't even taught.

...I agree. American History has a lot of dark alleys. However there was good. I do believe that most of the founders were decent men who were trying to ensure a free county. However, they were human and were heir to all the failings of man - hypocrisy among them. Benjamin Franklin in particular was a real piece of work. A member of the notorius "Hellfire Club" - a group of British Swells who practiced Satanic Rites and Orgies. While there is no proof he knew of it, a couple years ago the floor under the Flat he stayed in in London got dug up while they were repairing the floors. Underneath they found (39 if memory serves) bodies of young children that had been brutalized and murdered about the time he was there. ???

The Robber Barrons on the other hand were criminals in suits. While some revisionists would like to revise them into charitable souls who "deep down really meant well"; well, balderash. Old man Rockefeller used to bomb his own out of date facilities and then blame it on Union Organizers.

I have thought about trying to write a book on the Darkside of American History. Don't know that I'll get around to it. It is interesting but most people, sadly, would rather have their Fairy Tales than the truth.

The author's sudden discovery of, and exasperation with the current prominence of populist history in the academy lays bare both his ignorance of the field and his conservative political agenda.

Populist history is neither new nor is it academic heresy; it has been a competing approach, alongside the "great man" and "plumbing" schools among many others, for the historian's heart and mind for more than a century.

A preference for narrating change over time through the lens of the "great men" and not the "average men" is nothing more than that--a preference, informed in the author's case, it would seem, by his reactionary political agenda.

I think the old boy goes off the deep end. It appears he is very concerned that civil war history, presumably his forte, was overlooked at a symposium.

I suspect this letter of distrust for one's colleagues is equivalent to academic infighting bearing no more lasting relevance than a bitter note tacked to a cork board in some dusty corner of a history department lounge.

I suppose I need to qualify the last statement, but I'm too lazy. Does anyone object to my finishing with a healthy, "this is fug'n trivial bullshit, man."

when history documents Well it documents the Accomplishments of 'mostly' individuals, and groups of Followers,imo. the bad aspects of the accomplished are Dredged Forever, so it seems, and the good is temp. lost. ~~~I'm not sure, but this anti-american "fucking everything" has got to stop or at least recede!! agreed with author...

In a news conference on 11 October 2001, President George W. Bush said "we learned some very important lessons in Vietnam." All members of the U.S. armed forces should take a moment and familiarize themselves with the important lessons that George Bush learned during the Vietnam War. Since war in Iraq is inevitable, let’s do everything we can to encourage the men and women of the U.S. armed services to follow the example of their Commander-in-Chief when called upon to go into battle.

In May 1968, American soldiers were dying in combat in Southeast Asia at a rate of about 350 per week. George W. Bush was twelve days away from losing his student draft deferment (meaning that he’d be eligible for draft into the Vietnam War) when he abruptly decided that he should join the 147th Fighter Group of the Texas Air National Guard. In spite of the very long waiting list and having only scored the lowest acceptable grade on the pilot aptitude qualification test, this son of a Houston-based congressman managed to enlist on the same day that he applied, and a special ceremony was staged so he could be photographed swearing in for duty (a second special photo opportunity was arranged when Bush was commissioned a second lieutenant as Bush’s father the congressman [a supporter of the Vietnam War] stood proudly in the background). According to Shrub’s former commanding officer, Bush “said he wanted to fly just like his daddy.” Other members of the Texas Air National Guard at the time included the aide to the speaker of the Texas House and at least seven members of the Dallas Cowboys professional football team; Bush’s 147th Fighter Group was known as the "Champagne Unit" because it also included the sons of future Senator Lloyd Bentsen and Texas Governor John Connally.

Immediately following his promotion to second lieutenant, Bush was put on inactive duty status and spent more than two months in Florida working for Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Edward J. Gurney. When he wasn’t handing out Gurney press releases and making sure that the reporters didn’t oversleep, Bush returned to Houston for weekend Guard duty. In early 1970, Bush rented a one-bedroom apartment at the exclusive Chateaux Dijon complex in Houston, a building with six swimming pools where Bush played all-day water volleyball games and dated many of the single women who lived there.

In 1973, as Bush’s daddy was being considered for a new job as chairman of Nixon’s Republican National Committee, Dubya secured an early release from the National Guard to start at Harvard Business School, eight months short of his full six-year hitch, and transferred to a reserve unit in Boston for the rest of his time. “One of my first recollections of him,” says classmate Marty Kahn, “was sitting in class and hearing the unmistakable sound of someone spitting tobacco. I turned around and there was George sitting in the back of the room in his [National Guard] bomber jacket spitting in a cup.” Bush’s acceptance into Harvard Business School surprised some, since he had graduated from Yale a full five years before.

Urge enlisted men and women to do like Bush did: avoid combat at all costs, hang out, sleep late, and lead an active social life; when called upon to fight a war for your great nation, see if you can to pull political strings in order to avoid the infantry and chose instead to spend two years in flight training in San Antonio and another four years in part-time service in your home state. If you lack the ruling-class connections, than you should be obliged to do whatever you can to follow the lead of your Commander-in-Chief: cheat, lie, malinger, and go AWOL. Desert while you can; killing and dying for ruling-class petrocrats is for chumps.

Not American:

"When history documents Well...."
Who is "Well?"

"...it documents the Accomplishments.,"
Who are the "Accomplishments?"

"bad aspects., ...are Dredged Forever.,"
What are the "Dredged Forever?"

Lastly, what is, " anti-american "fucking everything"...?"

I am completely baffled. I have never read or heard anyone talk about these events, or people, or maybe groups?

History' Well' is descriptive and not a person or thing, in the sense that __things are goin Well__, ok?

The accomplishments are "Readilyreadable" in ANY public library or here on the internet!. Mediatv doesn't provide enuff, rite??

"dredged forever" ARE the BAD implications of the 'individual' who HAS accomplished Something, jesus do you understand anything?

And 'antiamerican'fuckingeverything is just as it stands, ie> just put anequal between american&fucking and y'll have it, Soooooo...
Nuther IE: anti everytthing===antiamerican

GotIt?

Okay, I understand.

You capitalize words that are important to you.

For some reason, I though that Well was a human.
Silly me.

Typically, when a word is capitalized in a sentence
it represents a proper name, the title of a book, or thought,
and the first letter of each sentence.

I hope this is helpful. Good luck with your grammar, and keep
reading those history books, kid!

To Mountain Man:

I thought yours was the most thoughtful comment on the thread. Just wanted to add my own ruminations spurred by your comment.

I think both the “Populist” and the “Great Person” lines of historical writing are both of value.

Frankly, I do believe many historical trends, for good or ill, have often hinged upon the actions of one person or at most a handful. Examples might be Gauttama Siddhartha, Jesus Christ, Moses, Charlemagn, and others.

George Washington set the standard for American Presidents and did much to cement the direction which the country took. Thomas Jefferson is still read and quoted widely.

Ordinary people will at times rise up to do extraordinary things. And an understanding of a given period lies implicit in the actions of ordinary people just going about their day to day activities of living.

I think a complete picture of history requires both.