Posted on 12/29/2004 5:39:25 AM PST by LS
Edited on 12/29/2004 8:20:02 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
This is it, Freepers! A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus' Great Discovery to the War on Terror goes on sale today!
Freepers, if you love history, and, more important, if you think that there has been a void in the telling of America's REAL history, this book is for you.
Thanks to you several Freepers who have read and commented on parts of this book. It is already the winner of February's Lysander Spooner Award for literature that advances the cause of liberty, and we are in talks with Fox and other outlets for a media blitz to take place during the official "roll out" in the second week of January. Meanwhile, if you are returning Christmas gifts and didn't get that "stocking stuffer," by all means, this is it!
I'll be happy to autograph copies if any Freeper wants to send me their copy, tell me to whom they want it inscribed or what they want it to say, and provide a postage-paid return envelope!
Thanks.
Much needed!
Do you find it difficult to detach yourself from such current history as the War on Terror for analytical purposes?Not really. I am of the view that while no historian can escape biases, one should neither pretend they do not exist (the "empiricists") or seek to counterbalance them with antithetical concepts (the New Left).
If you look at my previous book, "The Entrepreneurial Adventure," published in 2000, I went through 1996 or 1997 and (so far) my assessment of what was happening at the time I wrote it does not appear to be too far off.
I am interested in the nature of factual reporting, and the limitations of topical information ("the fog of war"). Part of my brief against journalism as we know it is the fact that journalists IMHO continuously hide from the judgement of history by taking refuge in the fog of breaking news. That is, they simply change the subject when events threaten the template in which they have been cramming the news into.For example, "the Cold War is over" - but who won it, and who lost it? From the Tet offensive until the disintegration of the USSR, journalism was unanimous that the Right Wing Cold Warriors such as Reagan were the great threat to peace and safety of the world. Yet Reagan can be buried full of honors as the statesman who won the Cold War without the least implication that journalism, and journalism's pollitical organization known as the Democratic Party, fought Reagan tooth and nail from the start of his campaign for the presidency to the inauguration of his sitting VP as president. And beyond, with the Iran-Contra investigations.
As I said - the subject of journalism's wrongheaded perspective during the Cold War simply never came up when Reagan's life was celebrated. Yet the signal virtue of Reagan was that he was able to do what was necessary over the bitter opposition of journalism and its lackeys.
Do I get a discount on your book for invoking my ping list? : )
I bought my copy of it at borders yesterday. Had to pay full price but its worth every penny. Finally Howard Zinn has serious competition in how American history is treated and interpreted. Its about time!
Paul Johnson's treatment of American history on the whole is fair and sympathetic. One can disagree with some of his interpretations but then its perfectly in the nature of historians to have their own take on how and why certain events happened.
Media bias bump.
In PHUSA, WE WON the COld War, pure and simple. Sorry, the discount on Amazon is as steep as it gets. But I will autograph.
LS
You should see how much we cut! Originally, I don't even know the word length, but we had to cut it by 1/3, then in the last moments, we had to chop another 20,000 words. We lost a lot of "social history," music, art, lit., and sidebards that were interesting, but, alas, expendable!
Yep. As I say, next to ours, his is the best. But ours is better. It's the difference between a Corvette and a Ferrari1!
That's an interesting take. I'd almost say you were wrong in your assessment if reporters did what they were supposed to do and report the news. However, they continually try to spin it to fit their view of "the way things should be." Therefore they fancy themselves as present-day historians, never really taking into account what has happened before that created the events which they are reporting.
The main reason I asked about the detaching ones self from recent history for analysis is that I've always heard that it's nearly impossible to truly analyze the effect an event has on history without at least a generation or so between the event and the analysis, otherwise your analysis would be too buried within the world created by the event (does that make sense?).
I'm comfortable bringing things up to the present (meaning, submitted to the editor) after which time there is a several month gap between submission and editing, then still more time before publication.
Thanks for the history ping
IMO, the best overview history texts were written pre-WWI when the western culture was trying to understand where they came from, who they were, where they were going plus understanding the cultures they conquered and why they had to conquer them.
Today, we are trying to grasp why we are given the responsibility of reforming Islam. Today, there are 100,000 books on the subject. Fifty years from now, ONE history books will obscure the facts to fit Iraqi War into one paragraph, no doubt fitting a certain agenda.
I think you'll find we know where we came from, and where we are going in our book.
Since "A Patriot's History. . . ." is now available on Amazon.com, I notice that Amazon also now lists a limited number of copies of the long out-of-print volume, "Our Ageless Constitution," 1987 Bicentennial Edition, by Stedman and Lewis, a 320-page work on the ideas and principles underlying the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. At the time of the Bicentennial, this book provided a reminder of the danger of the "living constitution" proponents who have, in the intervening years, further eroded our liberty in violation of the Constitution's own Amendment Process.
That book makes a great companion piece for "A Patriot's History of the United States," inasmuch as "Our Ageless Constitution" outlines the Founders' philosophy and principles. The Editors collaborated with many leading constitutional scholars who detailed step-by-step the methods by which we have strayed from those philosophies and principles over 200 years.
The Editors, in 1995, published an abridged version entitled "Rediscovering the Ideas of Liberty," but it did not contain the detailed accounts of judicial, legislative, and executive departures that the original volume did. "Rediscovering...."
Thank you, LS, for your work!
Cool. You're welcome. Amazon's execs are no fools. They know that conservative ideas---no matter when they were written---still have a market. Heck, next you'll see us "packaged" with "God and Man at Yale" and "Atlas Shrugged."
I just got back into town and into the swing of FR, this looks great!
As a fellow historian, I say "hoorah" and "it's about time!" I can't wait to read your book.
It's good. And I don't say that about everything I write, but there are passages in this that, I think, soar. I'm particularly proud of our interpretation of the 1950s and of the sections on Woodstock, Reagan, and Lincoln.
No sense hiding your light under a bushel, however. Here's a more reasonably sized cover shot:
Concur. Worth a CWII ping, IMHO, too.
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