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A PATRIOT'S HISTORY OF THE MODERN WORLD

Name: A PATRIOT'S HISTORY OF THE MODERN WORLD
Author: Larry Schweikart
ISBN: 978-1-59523-089-8

FROM AMERICA'S EXCEPTIONAL ASCENT TO THE ATOMIC BOMB: 1898-1945

by Larry Schweikart & Dave Dougherty ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 11, 2012

A predictable right-wing slant on American history.

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Schweikart (History/Univ. of Dayton; What Would the Founders Say?: A Patriot’s Answers to America’s Most Pressing Problems, 2011, etc.) and Dougherty (co-author: The Patriot’s History Reader: Essential Documents for Every American, 2011) pen a conservative paean to American exceptionalism.

In 2004, Schweikart published A Patriot’s History of the United States (co-authored with Michael Allen) as a conservative response to Howard Zinn’s bestselling A People’s History of the United States. This similarly titled book has a narrower focus, filtering a half-century of American history—from 1898 to 1945—through a right-wing lens. The authors focus on American involvement in both World Wars and how American virtues, particularly free-market capitalism, helped to win them. An overarching theme is the idea of American exceptionalism, that the United States is a “shining city upon a hill” above all others. The book is aimed at a hard-core Republican audience, so while it is extensively sourced and footnoted, it is steeped in conservative dogma. The authors label progressivism as “one of the most destructive forces since slavery” and Woodrow Wilson as a “self-appointed messiah,” and the phrase “economic justice” appears only in ironic quotation marks. The authors even paint Warren G. Harding, consistently ranked by many historians as one of the worst presidents in American history, as a thoughtful and capable leader. They also discount criticism of Japanese-American internment during World War II, implying that it was justified by FBI-gathered evidence—though they grudgingly note that “Japanese-Americans’ life in the camps was no picnic.”

A predictable right-wing slant on American history.

Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2012

ISBN: 978-1-59523-089-8

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Sentinel

Review Posted Online: July 29, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012

Categories:

HISTORY | MODERN | UNITED STATES | GENERAL HISTORY

- BOOK REVIEW
A PATRIOT'S HISTORY OF THE MODERN WORLD, VOL. II
by Larry Schweikart ; Dave Dougherty

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THE END OF HISTORY AND THE LAST MAN

by Francis Fukuyama ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 22, 1992

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In 1989, The National Interest published "The End of History?" by Fukuyama, then a senior official at the State Department. In that comparatively short but extremely controversial article, Fukuyama speculated that liberal democracy may constitute the "end point of mankind's ideological evolution" and hence the "final form of human government." Now Fukuyama has produced a brilliant book that, its title notwithstanding, takes an almost entirely new tack. To begin with, he examines the problem of whether it makes sense to posit a coherent and directional history that would lead the greater part of humanity to liberal democracy. Having answered in the affirmative, he assesses the regulatory effect of modern natural science, a societal activity consensually deemed cumulative as well as directional in its impact. Turning next to a "second, parallel account of the historical process," Fukuyama considers humanity's struggle for recognition, a concept articulated and borrowed (from Plato) by Hegel. In this context, he goes on to reinterpret culture, ethical codes, labor, nationalism, religion, war, and allied phenomena from the past, projecting ways in which the desire for acknowledgement could become manifest in the future. Eventually, the author addresses history's presumptive end and the so-called "last man," an unheroic construct (drawn from Tocqueville and Nietzsche) who has traded prideful belief in individual worth for the civilized comforts of self-preservation. Assuming the prosperity promised by contemporary liberal democracy indeed come to pass, Fukuyama wonders whether or how the side of human personality that thrives on competition, danger, and risk can be fulfilled in the sterile ambiance of a brave new world. At the end, the author leaves tantalizingly open the matter of whether mankind's historical journey is approaching a close or another beginning; he even alludes to the likelihood that time travelers may well strike out in directions yet undreamt. An important work that affords significant returns on the investments of time and attention required to get the most from its elegantly structured theme.

Pub Date: Jan. 22, 1992

ISBN: 0-02-910975-2

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Free Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1991

Categories:

GENERAL HISTORY

- BOOK REVIEW
LIBERALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS
by Francis Fukuyama

- BOOK REVIEW
AFTER THE END OF HISTORY
by Francis Fukuyama ; edited by Mathilde C. Fasting

- BOOK REVIEW
IDENTITY
by Francis Fukuyama

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THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD

by David McCullough ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 18, 1968

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The Johnstown Flood was one of the greatest natural disasters of all time (actually manmade, since it was precipitated by a wealthy country club dam which had long been the source of justified misgivings). This then is a routine rundown of the catastrophe of May 31st, 1889, the biggest news story since Lincoln's murder in which thousands died. The most interesting incidental: a baby floated unharmed in its cradle for eighty miles.... Perhaps of local interest-but it lacks the Lord-ly touch.