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33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask
vBulletin Book Store > vBulletin books beginning with 3
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33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask |
Author: Thomas E. Woods Jr.
Published: 2007-07-10 |
List price: $25.95
Our price: $17.13
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As of: October 12th, 2008 03:58:46 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 America: Land of Freedom and Opportunity
Before I comment on this excellent book, I feel compelled to tell a story that has some bearing on my own perception of how American history was taught when I was in the public school system.
I was in middle school in the mid sixties in a small town in North Alabama. It was a time when the Federal Government was forcing public school systems to integrate. Like slavery of the mid 1800's, segregated schools were not economically viable and would have eventually run the course of any unsustainable economic system.
But forced integration was a popular topic for the "progressives" (This word is a misnomer in my view. It should be "regressive") in this period of our history. My local school system's approach was to integrate slowly.
The first black student in our Junior High (Middle) School was a bright girl who had excelled in the black local school. I vividly recall her first day in my American History class. The teacher, who had coincidentally taught my father a generation before, asked her to read the title of our textbook. Slowly, but distinctly, she read; "America: Land of Freedom and Opportunity".
The rest of the year, as with all the other civics classed that I took during my tenure in the public school system, I learned the politically correct version of American history. Then I became older, and noticed that the way America works today is not quite what I learned in school. While we still have freedom and opportunity, these virtues seem to be severely restricted and regulated. Our country is nothing like what I had learned about. America was no longer the pure constitutional republic that I had been taught about in our public school system.
I wanted to know why.
All of my questions are being answered by [...] and authors like Tom Woods. "33 Questions" is the second book I've read by Mr. Woods. I've also seen, via the Internet, several of his lectures. He has a gift for pealing back the layers of fabrication to get to the meat of the matter. The subtle irony's and humor in his writing are delightful.
Thank you Mr. Woods. I'll be sharing this title with many others who share my curiosity of the traditional views on the story of our county.
 Chilling
I wonder at those reviewers who read this book and merely shrugged or poo-pooed this or that chapter for being too short or too long when it's a miracle this meticulously-researched tome even exists at all. The "official" version of US history--when it's bothered to be taught at all in government-run schools by unionized teachers--is biased against all the things that make America great: capitalism, religion, free enterprise, self-determination, governmental checks and balances. Since government runs most schools, which are kept in line by threats of withholding the federal dime, naturally Big Government and encroaching federal interference in every aspect of the "commoners'" lives is to be celebrated, for without all those government programs and boondoggles we would be poor and exploited by evil capitalists.
Probably the biggest eye-openers are questions concerning the questionable expansion of vast presidential powers (Theodore Roosevelt gets the lion's share of the blame) and the real reason the Civil War was fought: States' Rights. Big government revisionists and advocates can argue all day that "States' Rights" was a secret code for "slavery" but the real result now is, where before 1861 the States kept the federal government's power in check, there is now nothing to stop it. We're screwed.
A historical record you must read
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."- Thomas Jefferson
The authors approach is brilliant. Thomas E. Woods Jr. will take you on a journey through 33 myths that the elite would love to keep you ignorant of. The American public education system (or should I call it public misinformation system) subjects our children to revisionist history that should scream scenes from Orwell's 1984. This makes books such as these just that much more important.
The author will take you on a journey from the very unenvironmentally friendly Native Americans (there were less old growth forrests during their time than our own) to President Bill Clinton's mistakes in Kosovo. You'll learn why our city streets our less safe than the wild west, and why our founding fathers didn't believe in the elastic clause. Better yet, you'll start to question just why you were never taught any of these things while attending the public misinformation system. Were fed slogans in school, not facts. Yet I believe the author says it best.
" For this reason alone the state's official version of history, which is always and everywhere another such apologia on behalf of itself, deserves not the benefit of the doubt but an abiding and informed skepticism. No free people ever survived on a consistent diet of official propaganda. Hayek was right: how we understand the past dramatically influences how we view the present. That is why, for the sake of American freedom , there should be no question about American history you're not supposed to ask."
 Some interesting questions, but often very derivative and repetitive
Thomas Woods has became one of the foremost defenders of the Catholic Church and Austrian economics. As a person with a great deal of interest in the way cultures work and personality psychology, I can strongly see the sympathy the two have for each other in their strong emphasis on "natural law" and, in psychological typology, a "feeling" oriented means of judging the world.
"33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask" follows from his excessively selective Politically Incorrect Guide to American History but follows a question-and-answer format whereby Woods, in a manner more direct yet rather calmer than in the PIG, explains how each myth propagated in American public schools is wrong and offers a correction. The way in which Woods isolates the questions to explain why the explanation popular in US public schools is completely wrong actually makes him more convincing. This is especially true regarding the Civil War, which stands out very clearly in comparison to what Woods wrote earlier, whilst his rather milder tone helps especially to make the question about unions much clearer. On the other hand, his calmer tone seems to inhibit Woods from looking at issues I know from reading the far-left - for instance the activity of strikebreakers in the period before mass unionisation during the 1930s. (There is a difference most on the Right miss between what is taught in schools and even universities versus what the extremities of the Left think.)
There are a number of interesting points in "33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask". For instance, George Washington Carver and Samuel B. Fuller are two people whom most people in my Australian homeland would never mention, and even reading a little about them from Woods' perspective is quite interesting though neither worked in subjects I have any real interest in. His viewpoint on the "Wild West" is also well-argued and contradicts popular views of it even in Australia.
On the other hand, there are a large number of questions in "33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask" that detract from the book because they are simply so derivative. Examples include his viewpoint about the causes of the Great Depression and the failure of the New Deal to restore prosperity (which could have come from any time since) and even more about how Native Americans actually did a great deal of damage to the environment (anybody with the slighted knowledge of human ecology should know that perfectly). Had Woods included something more original instead of these "popular" questions he would have done himself credit.
All in all, "33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask" is a mixed bag. There are some interesting point, and it is better-written and cited than the Politically Incorrect Guides, but parts are very derivative and one hopes could be replaced with much more original questions.
 Partisan politics, not objective historical scholarship
As a scholar, I approached this book interested in obscure and less understood historical topics. I was appalled to find the partisan bias, in constructing questions as well as answers, which permeates this book. Unless you have been brainwashed by far right-wing political views and are looking for confirmation of your biases, you will find this book a waste of time. It lacks depth, accuracy, and objectivity.
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