Thursday, November 20, 1997
‘History on Trial’ littered with sloppy contradictions
BOOK: Although quick to read, authors distort truth for
self-vindication
By Christopher Bates
Daily Bruin Contributor
Propaganda always makes for a fun read. And like an Oliver Stone
film or an article in "Soldier of Fortune," it is hard to separate
truth from spin in "History on Trial" by Gary Nash, Charlotte
Crabtree and Ross Dunn.
First, let’s discuss the background of the book. As the authors
point out, professional historians are constantly updating and
reinterpreting this nation’s history. Since the 1960s, the trend
has been towards what has sometimes been called "history from
below" or the "New History," an emphasis on groups and events that
had previously been ignored by historians.
However, to a large extent, the innovations and insights that
have come out of the New History have not trickled down to the
nation’s primary and secondary schools. The feeling among many
professional historians is that students are still being taught
history in a fashion that emphasizes great men and politics, and
minimizes the significance of women, minorities and the working
classes, the people "Who Built America," according to the title of
a book by historian Herbert Gutman.
This concern became a part of the national discourse with George
Bush’s 1990 State of the Union address, in which he outlined six
National Educational Goals, developed in conjunction with the
nation’s governors, who were led by former Arkansas governor Bill
Clinton. Of particular significance was Goal 3, which affirmed that
"All students will be knowledgeable about the diverse cultural
heritage of this nation."
Following Bush’s address was two years of political maneuvering,
during which Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander and National
Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) chairman Lynne Cheney managed to
drum up bipartisan support for the development of a set of national
history standards. On December 16, 1991, with the support of the
Bush administration, Congress and the nation’s governors, the
National History Standards project was launched.
The co-directors of the project were Nash and Crabtree, two of
the authors of "History on Trial." Working with Cheney, they
appointed another 28 individuals to the project, and compilation of
the National History Standards was underway.
Fast-forward two years to October 24, 1994, shortly before the
Standards were set to be published. On that day, the Wall Street
Journal published an editorial by Lynne Cheney, who by then had
left her post as head of the NEH. Entitled "The End of History",
Cheney’s article blasted the work of the committee.
In a lead now famous among historians, Cheney wrote "Imagine an
outline for the teaching of American history in which George
Washington makes only a fleeting appearance and is never described
as our first president. Or in which the founding of the Sierra Club
and the National Organization for Women are considered noteworthy
events, but the first gathering of the U.S. Congress is not."
Cheney continued her attack, mostly by comparing how frequently
various topics appeared in the Standards. The Ku Klux Klan,
according to Cheney, was mentioned 22 times, the Constitution once.
Harriet Tubman received six references; Ulysses S. Grant and Robert
E. Lee, one and zero mentions, respectively. Joseph McCarthy was
listed 12 times, and, claimed Cheney, "Alexander Graham Bell,
Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk and the Wright brothers
make no appearance at all."
Four days after Cheney’s editorial was published, Rush Limbaugh
jumped on the bandwagon. Limbaugh cautioned his listeners that the
standards were part of the America-bashing agenda of the political
left that he had warned America about. By this time, the backlash
against Nash, Crabtree and others, was out of their control.
Shortly thereafter, by a vote of 99 to 1, the Senate passed a
resolution that insisted that the Standards be revised. The
committee was reorganized, and spent another year-and-a-half
reworking the Standards. On April 3, 1996, the National History
Standards were finally published.
So, for the authors of "History on Trial," the battle has
already been lost, and the book is essentially a postscript.
Ostensibly the book is an account of the whole controversy. In
fact, it is just an attempt by the authors to defend themselves and
to control whatever damage has been done to their reputations.
The authors take three different approaches in defending
themselves. The first is depicting themselves as heroic warriors in
what they call
"The History Wars." They argue that by trying to reexamine the
past, they are offering, "the greatest service historians can
render in a democracy." The notion that the authors are protecting
America’s democratic tradition is continued later in the book, when
they note that only an authoritarian society insists on having one
version of its historical narrative – a strange argument from a
group of people working to impose a single set of standards an
America’s historical narrative.
If Nash, Crabtree and the rest of the committee are the heroes
of this narrative, there must of course be villains. Pointing
fingers at scoundrel after scoundrel constitutes the second prong
of the authors’ defense of themselves. The Clinton administration
is described as having "turned tail and run." The Congress is
guilty of "irresponsible behavior." Lynne Cheney goes from being a
hero in the beginning of the book to being a goat at the end. The
biggest and most nefarious villain, of course, is "the right", a
faceless, shapeless enemy with seemingly limitless power that is
fanatically committed to a jingoistic, one-sided, racist version of
the past in the interest of what they call "patriotism."
The unmitigated attack on the right makes the third defense all
the more bewildering. After criticizing the right for demanding a
racially unbalanced version of history, the authors turn around and
make the point that their standards are pretty white anyhow. They
note that "more than seven hundred white men, living and dead, were
identified, many times the grand total of all women, African
Americans, Latinos and Indians individually named. Few names
appeared in the actual standards statements, but those that did
were all white males."
The contradiction between attacking the right and then arguing
that the standards really satisfy their agenda anyhow is just one
of the many flawed arguments the book makes. Perhaps the most
bothersome is the implication that anyone who objected to the
Standards opposes the goal they tried to advance, namely broadening
the perspective of America’s students by giving them a more
balanced historical education informed by an appreciation of all
the groups and cultures that have created this country. This
argument shows how flawed the authors’ understanding of the
controversy is. The opposition to the Standards, which included
many liberal educators, was not a reaction against the idea of
multiculturalism, but merely the authors’ version of it.
It is surprising that Nash has difficulty understanding this, as
he has been through this battle before. One of his most well-known
works is an American history textbook entitled "Red, White and
Black" in which he argues that each of these groups made an equal
contribution to American history.
Some individuals criticized the book for empowering minorities
in this way. However, the vast majority of criticism from scholars
was not that the book took a multiculturalist approach, but instead
that by equalizing the groups and forgetting the power relations
between them, the book presents a distorted view of history that
forgets the struggles and challenges that these groups faced.
Another striking contradiction in "History on Trial" comes from
the authors’ insistence that history has always been a contested
topic. They make this point over and over, pointing out that
American history has been contested since the day after the
Declaration of Independence was signed. This is a valid argument;
heck, if history was not contested there would be a lot of scholars
out of a job. Why, then, are the authors so shocked that their own
version of history has been highly contested? Did they expect that
their work would be so exceptional as to counter a 321-year-old
historical tradition?
So, for those who enjoy serious in-depth accounts of political
issues, this is not the book to read. If this book were really
about the state of the historical profession or the debate on
multiculturalism, it might appeal to people who are not historians.
But, in reality, these issues are merely decoys for the real
purpose of the book, for Standards Committee co-chairs Nash and
Crabtree to exonerate themselves.
If you are a historian, however, you might consider buying this
book. It’s a fairly quick read, and a seasoned veteran of the
history wars should be able to weed through the book and glean a
few kernels of insight from it. Or you could read another Nash book
such as "Forging Freedom," an example of the multiculturalist
approach and a great achievement that makes a far better argument
for multiculturalism than "History on Trial" ever could.