About book The Politically Incorrect Guide To American History (2004)
This book was incredibly eye-opening. The D&C says we are to waste out our days bringing hidden things to light. This book helps you to do that. The author goes through the span of U.S. history, from the Pilgrims to Bill Clinton, exposing what the popular myths are. So I learned the following:-the Native Americans were not the first American environmentalists-the revolutionary war was was more of a return to common law rights of Englishmen rather than a rebellion-the Civil War wasn't really about slavery-secession of the southern states wasn't treason; they were just exercising the right that New York, Rhode Island and Virginia had stipulated when they ratified the Constitution. This was the right that they could withdraw from the union if they ever felt the new government became oppressive -Lincoln wanted to send black Americans to Africa-in his fourth debate with Douglas, Lincoln said that he did not, nor did he ever, want to bring about equality between the white and black races-Andrew Johnson was mistreated by the Radical Republicans of Congress, he was basically "framed" or set up to do something dubiously unconstitutional, so that his political enemies in Congress could then impeach him-the 14th amendment wasn't properly ratified-Wilson did not hold Britian and Germany to the same standards of neutrality in regards to their warships before the U.S. entered the war, which is part of the reason why the U.S. ended up entering the war-Woodrow Wilson was seriously deluded-JFK's father (who made his fortune as a bootlegger) paid someone to write Profiles of Courage, and then bought tens of thousands of copies of the books and then stashed them in storage, so it would get bestseller status-JFK made a deal with the Mafia boss to buy votes so he could win the presidency. He philandered with a girlfriend who was also the mistress of this Mafia boss-FDR wanted to fight a war with Japan and goaded them into it-FDR was chummy with Stalin and thought that Stalin would work with him to create a world of "democracy and peace." He agreed to "give" Poland to Stalin but told Stalin not to publicize it because he didn't want to lose the Polish vote in the next presidential election-the Marshall Plan did not help Europe to recover economically after WWII, free markets did-after WWII, Russian POWs in the U.S. were tear-gassed at Ft. Dix and sent back to the Soviet Union, after they had begged not be sent back there and after USG officials "promised" that they would allow them to stay here (Operation Keelhaul)-many Communists existed in the U.S.-a guy who won the Pulitzer prize for reporting that there was no famine in the Ukraine during Stalin's reign actually lied. (There was a massive famine.) When someone asked the Pulitzer prize committee to revoke his honor, they refused-a historian who was liberal and socialist changed his ways and returned to his boyhood Catholicism-Lyndon Johnson stole his senate win -LBJ's war on poverty actually made it worse-under Clinton's reign U.S. troops were sent to more wars in the world total than in all the other presidencies combined-Clinton probably bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Mogadishu to detract attention from his Lewinsky scandal
Part of the 2015 Reading Challenge: A nonfiction bookIt’s always great to get another perspective on history, and this book made me realize how little I know about my own country. Though, while I learned much from this book in the early chapters, it was clear from the latter that the author had a definite bias. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as we all have our biases and there’s no way to escape them no matter how objective you might try to be, but the further I read into this book, the more unsure I was about what had actually happened in history, as this book makes it clear that what we’re taught in school about American history isn’t completely correct, but neither do I believe everything in this book to be completely correct. If you’re on the fence about reading it, it is well worth the read, but just take some of the facts with a grain of salt.As I said, the earlier chapters is what really drew my interest and where I feel I learned the most. I kne.w this country has strayed far from what the Founding Fathers had planned, but this book really opened my eyes to just how far we’ve strayed, and how much the power of the federal government has gotten out of control.As for the latter chapters, I still learned from them as well, though there were a few sections that I was very skeptical of, and others that the author seemed to leave some information out of in order to further his own agenda. Take the 1920s, for instance. I think all most people know about that time period is Prohibition. The book states, “for the most part they [President Harding and President Coolidge] simply stayed out of the economy and out of people’s lives.” There is no mention of Prohibition, but just an emphasis on how these two men scaled back how involved the government was in everyone’s lives. It just seemed a little bit odd to me, to not mention the one bit of common knowledge about the era, and it makes me wonder what else was left out in this book.However, my complaints about this book is slight, as really it is the complaint against any history book. It was a quick read with small sections that really help you to fly through the book. I was always engrossed in what I was reading, and there’s even a few passages (mostly quotes from other people) I wrote down. While I might not seek this book out to own, it’s one I would buy if I came across it.
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The lack of notes in the P.I.G. books (Politically Incorrect Guides) that I've read so far is frustrating. They offer quite a different perspective which I imagine could be just as biased as the leanings in other books the claim to debunk.I offer as example a 19th century soundbite taken completely out of context to support the portrait of a innocent, peaceful Confederacy. Page 87 Woods writes, "Johnson argued that Radical Reconstruction showed such contempt for law and precedent that it proved the Southern secessionists' point at the time they withdrew from the Union: that their constitutional liberties would not be secure under the administration elected in 1860. He said: 'Those who advocated the right of secession alleged in their own justification that we had no regard for law and that their rights of property, life, and liberty would not be safe under the Constitution as administered by us. If we now verify their assertion, we prove that they were in truth and in fact fighting for their liberty, and instead of branding their leaders with the dishonoring name of traitors against a righteous and legal government we elevate them in history to the rank of self-sacrificing patriots, consecrate them to the admiration of the world, and place them by the side of Washington, Hampden, and Sidney. 'QUITE an interesting quote from a standing president following the civil war, uncited, I looked this up: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pi... , finding that our little history book left out this little tidbit he said right after; "No; let us leave them to the infamy they deserve, punish them as they should be punished, according to law, and take upon ourselves no share of the odium which they should bear alone."This is a preemptive write up (most likely all that will be offered) since I am only at page 87 but just wanted to jump at this opportunity since I am at my computer with some spare time
—Evan Farah
Learning history doesn't have to be boring. This is a good example of it. The author does a good job exploring the many aspects of the good, the bad and the ugly of American history. I loved the discussion on the Colonist's Christian heritage; how the original intent of the establishment clause in the first amendment was not to ban religious discourse concerning public policy; and how the Puritans actually brought lands from native Americans and even punished settlers who took lands without doing it properly. I enjoyed the frank discussion in the chapters leading up to and on the Civil War, which the author's chief thesis was that the war really did not begin because of slavery. As an interesting side issue from his main argument, I was shocked to learn and later confirmed that the Union highest general, Ulysses S. Grant even owned slaves! Among the things that I do want to research further and confirm in the near future: the extent of naval hostilities the US was already engaged in against the Germans while officially neutral prior to World War 1 and 2, who the true FDR really was and some of his forgotten policies such as turning in anti-communists Russians back to the Soviet Union (!). Things that I learned new that I later confirmed included the following: Fredrick Douglas, after the wrongful decision by the Supreme Court was nevertheless freed by his own master after the trial; Butler's Union General Order 28 after New Orleans was taken over did compare hostile Southern woman to woman of the night, which received international outcry during the war. There were times while I was reading the book that I was surprised (especially in the footnotes) of the author's familiarity with the Austrian school of economics especially in light of the popularity of Keynesian economics today among academia. I later found out Thomas Woods is himself an advocate of this economic view so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. Though the author is a Roman Catholic, his work did have protray any obvious Catholic distinctive, though I do understand he has another published work on Roman Catholicism's contribution to Western Civilization. Good book--I recommend it. Not everything is pretty in US history, getting uglier when it approached the twentieth century and beyond. At the same time, the book does make you appreciate the incredible insight the founding fathers had and what it was that informed their political ideology.
—Jimmy
This is a nice alternative to your typical history textbook, but I can't quite bring myself to rate it higher than three stars. There's a lot of great information here, but trying to distill the entire history of the U.S.A. down to three hundred pages is a problematic endeavor no matter how you slice it. Still, Woods' perspective gave me a different take on a lot of things, such as the startling degree to which Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt were responsible for escalating World Wars I and II. Definitely a controversial book, as Woods takes on a lot of sacred cows here.
—John
