American History Revised (80 page)

Second, don’t take what you read for granted. The gift of all good
historians is an ability to use their imagination and make sense of the past. Most people get bogged down in the details, and eschew the effort of making connections and seeing the larger picture. Ask questions, think big. Think like William Lear.

Third, relate the past to the present. What we are experiencing today when we read the newspapers is the history of the future. History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. No two situations are identical, but they are often pretty close. History is an important part of a liberal education because of what we in business call experience, or what psychologists call pattern recognition: “the ability to see the relevance of other non-identical situations.” Pattern recognition is a key component of sound decision-making.

It may surprise you to know that the inspiration for this book was not a history book, but a public policy book by an investment banker. It was Peter Peterson’s
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
, published in 2004. Peterson, secretary of commerce under Nixon and founder of America’s largest private equity firm, the Blackstone Group, is no historian per se. But his book had so many insightful historical references that I realized that being concise and getting straight to the point is a skill more natural to a businessman than to many professional historians. As a businessman myself, might I not be a historian, too?

Peterson’s book is about how America is sliding downhill because its politicians are making irresponsible promises they know they can’t deliver. He concludes, “I propose that a simple curriculum be developed and taught in the schools that would instruct young people on the full range of rights and duties that belong to all Americans as citizens.” America needs more civics education. The value of such education has to do with more than just patriotism, but with enhancing genuine self-awareness. “If we forget what we did,” said Ronald Reagan in his farewell address, “we won’t know who we are.” Many years ago, when she was twelve years old, Oprah Winfrey was asked what she hoped to do with her life. “I want to be a leader of people,” she said. “And where do you want to lead them to?” she was asked.

“To themselves,” she said.

“history … academics”: Gore Vidal,
United States: Essays 1952–1992
, p. 726.; Greek concept of
istoria:
Angel Gurria-Quintana, “Telling Details Amid the History Lessons,” London
Financial Times
, April 8–9, 2006, p. W4; Barbara Tuchman from
American Heritage
, Winter 2008, p. 15; John Adams’s desk: the Harvard professor was Frank Friedel; Thomas Watson: Cerf & Navasky,
The Experts Speak
, p. 208; William Lear: C. P. Gilmore, “William Lear: Two Hundred Million Dollars,” in Max Gunther,
The Very, Very Rich and How They Got That Way
, p. 148; British empire and Sir Cecil Rhodes: Sir Ranulph Fiennes,
Race to the Pole
, p. 2–3; Alice Paul: Elyce J. Rotella, “The Equal Rights Amendment—Yes, But
Whose?”
in Donald N. McClosky, ed.,
Second Thoughts
, pp. 72–75; Washington and his frustration with the number of congressional committees: Thomas Fleming,
Washington’s Secret War
, p. 13; Confederation of American States $3 million bill: Stanley Lebergott,
The Americans: An Economic Record
, pp. 48–49; “The past is a foreign country”: David Lowenthal,
The Past Is a Foreign Country;
Attempt to impeach Washington by Andrew Jackson: Sidney Hyman,
The American President
, p. 82; Andrew Jackson and the Treasury Building from James Humes,
Which President Killed a Man?
p. 154; Lincoln and his son Willy: Katherine Ramsland,
Cemetery Stories
, p. 7; Lincoln and his wife: Jim Bishop,
The Day Lincoln Was Shot
, pp. 3–25; Thomas Jefferson’s “Life, Liberty and Property”: Stephen Jay Gould,
Bully for Brontosaurus
, p. 29; “liberty for property” from Lewis H. Lapham, “Holy Dread,”
Lapham’s Quarterly
1, no. 2 (Spring 2008): 14; Eleanor Roosevelt/FDR: Dorothy Height, “The Civil Rights Movement,” in Brian Lamb,
Booknotes on American Character
, p. 139; Chernobyl
radiation statistic: “Ecological Concerns,”
Motion: The Magazine of Olympic Airways
, Spring–Summer 2000, p. 99; Nevada radiation statistic: James W. Loewen,
Lies Across America
, p. 87; Oliver Wendell Holmes, “through the skylight”: compiled by M. Shawn Cole, #26510,
Cole’s Quotables
,
www.quotationspage.com
; John Maynard Keynes: Joshua S. Goldstein,
The Real Price of War
, p 15; “a surprise that was expected”: John Lukacs,
Outgrowing Democracy
, p. 15; JFK grassy knoll: John Kaplan, “The Case of the Grassy Knoll: the Romance of Conspiracy,” in Robin Winks,
The Historian as Detective
, p. 387; $6.50 boat fare: Herman D. Hover,
Fourteen Presidents before Washington
, pp. 90–91; Henry Ford: Harold Evans,
They Made America
, p. 244; American Bar Association from Scott’s Turow’s review of
America’s Constitution: A Biography
by Akhil Reed Amar, in
www.amazon.com
; 83 percent of Americans from James W. Loewen,
Lies Across America
, p. 25; Martin Luther King Jr. from Valerie Strauss, “Despite Lessons on King, Some Unaware of His Dream,”
Washington Post
, Jan. 15, 2007, p. B-1; students rating Clinton higher than Washington from Peter A. Lillbeck, “Rehabilitating George Washington, Man of Character,”
Washington Times
, July 10, 2006, p. 32;
Common Sense
statistics (600,000 sales; 500,000 voters out of population of 3 million) from Howard Fineman,
The Thirteen American Arguments
, pp. 9, 80; Stephen A. Douglas from William H. Rehnquist,
Centennial Crisis
, p. 10; for a lively essay on why history matters, see Stephen Fry, “The Future’s in the Past,”
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1815961,00.html
; Benjamin Franklin: James C. Humes,
The Ben Franklin Factor
, p. 47; “thrill of learning singular things”: Marc Bloch,
The Historian’s Craft
, p. 8;

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., quoted in Joanna L. Stratton,
Pioneer Women
, p. 11; Dana Lindaman and Kyle Ward,
History Lessons
, The New Press, 2004, p. xx; Larry McMurtry,
Oh What a Slaughter
, p. 40.

Gore Vidal from Alan Taylor, “Casa del Gore,”
Edinburgh Sunday Herald
, 29 July 2001,
http://www.sundayherald.com/17204
; Hugh Trevor-Roper quoted in John Costello,
Days of Infamy
, p. 331; Marshall Plan 16 percent of 1948 federal budget from Peter G. Peterson,
Facing Up
, p. 56; Senator Vandenberg’s vacations from Joseph C. Goulden,
The Best Years: 1945–1950
, p. 275; George Washington escape from David McCullough, “What the Fog Wrought,” in Robert Cowley, ed.,
What If?: The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been
, p. 191; servant arrested by German patrol from A. J. Langguth,
Patriots
, p. 414; Louisiana Purchase offered to England from David Louis,
2001 Fascinating Facts
, p. 175; Jefferson and U.S. bonds from Kenneth C. Davis,
Don’t Know Much About History
, p. 103; Mexico treaty one day after gold discovery from
Reader’s Digest Strange Stories
, p. 372; Melvyn Bragg,
The Adventure of English
, pp. 39–40; Alfred North Whitehead from Marcus Cunliffe, “What If?”
American Heritage
, Dec. 1982, p. 18.

Prewar negotiations from Barbara W. Tuchman,
The March of Folly
, pp. 193–95; Grand Union flag from Thomas Fleming,
1776
, p. 35; “English colors but more striped” from Thomas Parrish,
The American Flag
, pp. 56–57; “Olive Branch Petition” from David McCullough,
1776
, p. 10; wartime negotiations from Barbara W. Tuchman,
The First Salute
, pp. 198–201; Howe response and 1876 Centennial from Kevin Keim,
A Grand Old Flag
, p. 11.

Washington from Thomas Fleming,
1776
, p. 430; Rall from A. J. Langguth,
Patriots
, p. 414; Grant from James M. McPherson, “If the Lost Order Hadn’t Been Lost,” in Robert Cowley, ed.,
What If?
pp. 225–38; Lt. Joseph McDonald testimony from Proceedings of Army Pearl Harbor Board,
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/myths/radar/mcdonald_1.html
; military historian Harry A. Butowsky, “Early Warnings: the Mystery of Radar in Hawaii,”
http://crm.cr.rips.gov./archive/15–8/15–8–2.pdf
; Corp. George Mooney testimony from
http://deceitatpearlharbor.com
/; FDR cover-up of MacArthur from John Costello,
Days of Infamy
, pp. 3–4, 42, and from Ronald H. Spector,
Eagle Against the Sun
, pp. 98, 117–18.

Barbara Tuchman,
The First Salute
, pp. 289–92; Robert Harvey,
A Few Bloody Noses
, p. 7; Don Cook,
The Long Fuse
, pp. 340, 346–48; Robert Leckie,
The Wars of America
, p. 213.

King George and Haym Salomon quotes from Shirley Milgrim,
Haym Salomon
, pp. 83, 59; Howard Fast,
Haym Salomon
, pp. 233–51; see Charles E. Russell,
Haym Salomon and the Revolution;
U.S. postage stamp commemoration from
www.absoluteastronomy.com/ref/haym_salomon
; George Wilson,
Stephen Girard
, pp. 263, 269, 278–81; Morgan quote from James Brown Scott,
Robert Bacon
, pp. 73–79; Ron Chernow,
House of Morgan
, pp. 71–75; see Jean Strouse,
Morgan: American Financier.

Gary Wills, “The Words That Remade America: Lincoln at Gettysburg,”
Atlantic Monthly
, June 1992, p. 58.

Charles B. Flood,
1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History
, pp. 189–91; U. S. Grant,
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant
, vol. 2, p. 306; casualty statistics from David J. Eicher,
The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War
, p. 717, and from Gary W. Gallagher, “Monocacy,” in Frances H. Kennedy, ed.,
The Civil War Battlefield
, pp. 235–38.

Sarah Booth Conroy, “Salute to Navy Reformer,”
International Herald Tribune
, Sept. 25, 1998, p. 26; William Howard Adams,
Jefferson’s Monticello
, pp. 254–62; Marc Leepson, “The Levys at Monticello,”
Preservation Magazine
, March/April 1998; see Mark Leepson,
Saving Monticello.

Paul Grondahl,
I Rose Like a Rocket: The Political Education of Theodore Roosevelt
, pp. 242, 319, 359; Butler from Clarence Macartney,
Lincoln and His Generals
, pp. 64–65.

Gone with the Wind
from Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky,
The Experts Speak
, pp. 172–73;
Reader’s Digest
from Charles Panati,
Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things
, pp. 362–63; Audubon from Richard Rhodes, “The Genius of John James Audubon,”
Smithsonian
, December 2004, pp. 76–80; Dickinson, Melville, and Thoreau from Don Gifford,
The Farther Shore
, p. 160; Webster’s
Dictionary
from J. North Conway,
American Literacy
, p. 48; F. Scott Fitzgerald from David Heenan,
Double Lives
, p. 215; Gertrude Stein, Anaïs Nin, Mae West, Margaret Mitchell, and Ayn Rand from Claudia Roth Pierpont,
Passionate Minds
, pp. 40, 52, 90, 100, 201, 206–7, 210;
The Fountainhead
from Nora Ephron,
Wallflower at the Orgy
, pp. 49–51, and Richard E. Ralston, “Publishing
The Fountainhead,”
in Robert Mayhew,
Essays on Ayn Rand’s
The Fountainhead, pp. 65–75.

Leslie Groves,
Now It Can Be Told
, pp. 33, 37, 51, 178, 184; Sengier quote from
www.answers.com/topic/edgar-sengier
.

Samuel Eliot Morison,
History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II
, vol. 4,
Victory in the Pacific 1945
, pp. 319–30 (“only a fool could have missed” and Voltaire’s quip, pp. 322, 327–28); “pride of the enemy fleet” from Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts,
Enola Gay
, pp. 101, 33, 106, 176, 210–12; “shorten the war” and “sustain even one torpedo” from Dan Kurzman,
Fatal Voyage
, pp. 19, 15; “Adrian Marks, 81, World War II Navy Pilot,”
New York Times
obituary, March 15, 1998; Raymond Lech,
All the Drowned Sailors
, pp. 87–122; see Doug Stanton,
In Harm’s Way;
www.ussindianapolis.org/pfinnstory.htm
.

Nixon and China from James C. Humes,
The Ben Franklin Factor
, p. 60; FDR and China from Barbara W. Tuchman,
Practicing History
, p. 188; Buchanan and Cuba from Shelley Ross,
Fall from Grace
, p. 86; Eisenhower and Churchill, and 1963 test ban treaty, from Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.,
The Cycles of American History
, pp. 393–94, and p. 66.

V
IETNAM
: Walt Brown,
The People vs. Lee Harvey Oswald
, p. 61; JFK to Mansfield, and LBJ quote from Gary A. Donaldson,
America at War Since 1945
, pp. 94–97; “Win the war!” from Robert S. McNamara,
In Retrospect
, pp. 102, 93–94; JFK shift in priorities from John M. Newman,
JFK and Vietnam
, pp. 426–27, 442–43, 449.