Over the summer, I picked up Volume II of William Bennett's synopsis of American history: America the Last Best Hope. I read Volume I shortly after it was published in 2006, and snapped up Volume II as soon as I knew it was available. I cannot adequately express how strongly I recommend this work. If you have a child who is studing American history, please buy these books for your child. Even better, if you have children who have not been completely indoctrinated with the brand of history that's being taught in today's public school systems, buy these books for them! Read them yourself. They're even entertaining enough that you could read them out loud to your older elementary school age children.
This is the most refreshing and enjoyable historical work I have read in a very long time. While not glossing over the darker episodes in our nation's history, Bennett clearly believes that there is much about America that is worth remembering, and cherishing. Here is an excerpt from the introduction to Volume I:
"I wrote this book for many reasons. The first and most important is the need for hope. When President Lincoln wrote to Congress in December, 1862, shortly after he issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, he wrote, 'We shall nobly save or meanly lose this last best hope of earth.' For nearly a century before that message - and easily for a century afterward - Americans would not have doubted that this country was indeed that last best hope...I believe America is still that hope, but I also believe that our conviction about American greatness and purpose is not as strong today. Newspaper columns and television reports are full of cynicism. Many express doubts about American motives on the world stage. Some Americans seem ready to believe the worst about our leaders and our country. Thinking and believing the worst certainly is not hopeful. It is my humble wish that those who read this book will find reason to reclaim some of the hope and conviction we have lost."
Later in the introduction, Bennett quotes from Ronald Reagan's Farewell Address, delivered as he was leaving office:
"There is a great tradition of warnings in Presidential farewells, and I've got one that's been on my mind for some time. But oddly enough it starts with one of the things I'm proudest of in the past 8 years: the resurgence of national pride that I called the new patriotism. This national feeling is good, but it won't count for much and it won't last unless it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.
"An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over thirty-five or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-sixties.
"But now, we're about to enter the nineties, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't institutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom - freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs [protection].
"So we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion, but what's important - why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those thirty seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, four years ago on the fortieth anniversary of D-Day, I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late father, who'd fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, 'We will always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did.' Well, let's help her keep her word.
"If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. Let's start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual."
I'm sorry to say it, but things haven't gotten much better in the almost 20 years since Reagan spoke those words. In fact, they've arguably gotten much worse. There is an erosion of the American spirit, and it is being driven by popular culture, by school systems whose curricula are driven by what's fashionable and politically correct, by news broadcasts anchored by individuals who worry out loud about whether it's inappropriate to wear a flag lapel pin and feel that their credibility would be compromised if they were perceived to actually be rooting for their own country. All things considered, in a way I'm glad that a true patriot like Ronald Reagan didn't live to see the likes of Fahrenheit 911.
William Bennett has done a marvelous job of telling us what's important in the sweep of American history, and managed to make it interesting and entertaining in the process. Please. Read these books.
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