The Federalist: If “reading maketh a full man,” as Sir Francis Bacon avers, Then the New York Times best-seller list is a window into the American soul. To judge from the view, we are an angry, divided, and shallow nation.
A deeper look, however, can give us some hope even in that bleak landscape of elite Americana. One finds several encouraging entries on this week’s predictable slew of political screeds and celebrity tell-alls. David McCullough’s “The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West” is an academic history about the settlement of Ohio written in characteristically beautiful prose. A little further down, “The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777,” by Rick Atkinson, is the first volume of his Revolutionary War trilogy.
George Will’s “The Conservative Sensibility” is new to the list this week. Quite unlike the political commentaries that routinely rank, Will’s 600-page book is an academically researched “exercise in intellectual archeology” designed to “reveal the Republic’s foundations.”
He believes the country’s foundational principles remain vitally important to healthy republican government today, and brings to bear an encyclopedic command of American history and the history and consequences of subsequent American political thought. One recommendation: Americans should know their history. As Will notes in his chapter on the aims of education, “the memory of a nation needs attending to; it does not nurture and transmit itself. It must be transmitted; it must be taught.”
Ironically, Will’s ascent displaced a book that did just that—Sen. Tom Cotton’s “Sacred Duty.” Equal parts memoir and history, Cotton’s book tells the story of “The Old Guard” infantry unit, to which he was assigned as a platoon leader between tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its mission, to honor the country’s fallen soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery, captured the attention of enough Americans to rank for three weeks (although apparently not the New York Times’, which has so far neglected to review it).
Encouragingly, this isn’t abnormal; challenging works in American history have often topped the non-fiction list. John Meacham’s “The Soul of America,” and Ron Chernow’s “Grant,” were both among the small number of serious books to claim the top spot in 2018, a year dominated by breezy commentaries criticizing or celebrating President Trump. more
With but a few exceptions the highest paid public servants in the U.S. are College/University FOOTBALL COACHES!
I don’t know about you, but I think this country could benefit more from scientists and engineers than jocks!
And same goes for the history departments!
I studied history on my own. The public schools were already infested with Marxists by the 1970s.
Thank God I was aware that I was being dry shaved by the bastards and wanted to learn anyway, so I skipped school and studied on my own. My mother asked the schools how I could be absent more than I attended class and still get As. The answer was: gets among the highest score when he shows up to take the test.
I would have gone to class if it were not for the forced indoctrination the pieces of shit thought they were sneaking in.
a good football coach brings in 100x his salary and funds the scientists
Just read what the founders wrote. And then read the books they grew up reading.
Boom. Culture saved.
David McCullough is an excellent author. His “John Adams” was one of the best books I have read in the last decade.
The re-writing of history is one of the most disgusting issues with Common Core. One project had the students read an article about the Revolutionary War; the Patriots were the mean ‘bad guys’ and the Loyalists were the innocent ‘good guys’. One of my readers had been a middle school history teacher and he brought in his textbook from 1962 to let me read it. I liked it so much, I found it online and bought it. Common Core is evil.
I was one class away from having a triple minor in History and only had one great professor in college but did have a solid AP teacher and a retired marine history teacher in high school.
All the rest were anti-American Chomsky and Zinn acolytes. 30 years of these traitors later and nobody thinks this country deserves to exist.
I tried to explain the meaning of American exceptionalism to a younger co-workers who emigrated from Cote d’Ivoire a few years ago but you have to know the history to appreciate why, in the entirety of human existence, that the U.S. is the exception to everything tried before.
I also learned American history as well as world history on my own since I was a voracious reader. I learned far more on my own than I did from the history classes I took in Junior High and HS. The one exception being Mr. Harmon who was old school and taught American history in 8th grade in 1966 & 67, he made history interesting and was a very good history teacher. Book worms rule, jocks for the most part drool and are athletically talented idiots. I agree with Claudia that common whore as I call it is an evil rewriting of everything good about American history.
I was interested until I got to George Will. He can go straight to hell.
I can confess that public school did inculcate me with a hatred of progressivism and all it has to offer, just being around the sonsabitches and observing their maneuvering and manipulating left a lasting impression on me.
David McCullough’s “The Path Between the Seas” about the building/digging of the Panama Canal is outstanding. It’s on my shelf and due for a second read.
His book in the Pioneer’s in Ohio will be a good choice for me also.
US history is rich and extremely entertaining to read about, better than novels by far.
American colleges & universities must HATE Georges Santana.
They want Americans to be ignorant of Historys lessons. They want History to keep repeating itself over and over again so that they can keep shoving Socialism up our asses over and over again.
Socialism ALWAYS FAILS and they don’t want the LoFos to know it.
Most college professors want to be like that lying squaw Warren, get 600 grand to attend 1 class (because they sure as hell aren’t going to teach anything)
Teaching History requires work, Gender Studies, not so much.
i just picked up David McCulloughs 1776.
Colleges are leftist indoctrination centers. Period.
WTF happended? – aside from our trusting the likes of boehner and mccain to fight for our freedom while we went about our lives trying to be productive?
Yeah…George Will. Right.
George Will is also a huge Baltimore Orioles fan and they absolutely suck so what does that tell you. His 15 minutes of fame as a conservative were over a long time ago for him, just like Peggy Noonan. I can’t stand these holier than thou elitist snob intellectuals who think that they’re better than us because of their establishment credentials.