Posted on 12/14/2004 11:21:25 AM PST by nickcarraway
The dwindling cadre of academics who try to hold the line on standards have a particularly rough time of it when choosing textbooks.
“Every semester I have to pick a new book and I have to pick the least bad book and it’s really depressing,” Suffolk County Community College professor Thomas E. Woods, Jr. says. “You need a good stiff drink.”
“Other conservative academics from across the country have the same problem.”
Dr. Woods teaches history at Suffolk, which is affiliated with the State University of New York. His partial solution to the textbook dilemma was to write his own Politically Incorrect Guide to American History (Regnery 2004).
The book traces America’s history from the pilgrims to the Clinton years, drawing on some rarely seen historical quotations. For example, Woods shows us that during the civil war, confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson thought slavery “a moral and political evil” while Union Army General Ulysses S. Grant took a surprisingly ambivalent view of the practice, bringing into question the manner in which that particular American conflict is typically taught.
For the most part, Woods tries to focus on those aspects of American history that most teachers ignore. “I think that most people know about Watergate but they don’t know how [former President] Lyndon Johnson stole his first election to the United States Senate,” Dr. Woods notes.
Of particular interest to Dr. Woods are the efforts of the former Soviet Union to influence United States government policies through communist agents. With the release of once-classified U. S. government documents and even the opening of the archives of the Communist International in Moscow, more is known about Soviet efforts at subversion in the United States than ever before.
“It takes a very long time for recent research to make it into textbooks so I wanted to get some of the recently-released material into print,” Dr. Woods says.
Nevertheless, despite the information available to serious researchers of Cold War history, the hunger for the story told by archival documents is noticeably absent in academe. Dr. Woods, with his interest in the material, is a rare example in the Ivory Tower today.
“It does seem that there is less than a stampede to get over there among academics,” Dr. Woods admits of the treasure trove of information in Moscow. “You can talk all you want to about communism and you will get no interest in academia.”
Dr. Woods started racking up his politically-incorrect bona fides even before the release of his Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. For instance, he is the editor of The Latin Mass, and an enthusiastic advocate of the Roman Catholic rite.
Surprisingly, this interest of his has netted the devout Catholic, if anything, benign curiosity in academia. His colleagues at Suffolk find the Latin rite of the Roman Catholic Church intriguing as an historical phenomenon. In an odd contrast, many Catholics in Catholic colleges and universities take a more hostile view of the return to this religious tradition.
“In mainstream-left Catholic circles, favoring the traditional Latin Mass is about the least popular position one can hold,” Dr. Woods observed. “There is virulent opposition to it.”
“In secular circles, though, few people feel particularly strongly about it one way or the other.”
At least one Christian academy has indicated that it wants to use Dr. Woods’ Politically Incorrect Guide to American History as a text. Additionally, conservative professors from around the country want to put it on their reading lists.
Dr. Woods remains optimistic about the hope of attaining more diversity on America’s campuses. He says conservatives contemplating an academic career should not abandon that aspiration.
“If you do good scholarly work, you will get recognized,” Dr. Woods told Campus Report Online. Dr. Woods himself matriculated from two bastions of the academic establishment—Harvard and Columbia.
Dr. Woods shares fond memories of every college and university he has ever studied in or taught at, including Columbia. At Columbia, Dr. Woods could claim Allen Brinkley, son of iconic newsman David, as his advisor.
Although identifiably liberal, Dr. Woods remembers receiving fair, gracious treatment from the history department advisor. Still, Dr. Woods admits, Columbia’s history department was so far left that his colleagues considered the liberal-leaning Brinkley a conservative merely because his politics were not as radical as those of his contemporaries.
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I heard him on a local radio show yesterday. Sounds like a great book. I've already dropped Christmas hints to my husband.
That is great. I'm going to have to get a copy of that book. As a southerner, I've always been irritated that no one teaches about the many people in the South who weren't staunch defenders of the institution of slavery and that slavery wasn't the one central issue of the war to begin with. The very legitimate (and still pressing) concerns of federal power over the states and the erosion of federalism were key issues between the South and North, but that all gets ignored so that the South can be painted as one big pile of hateful racists fighting just to keep their rich plantations running.
I recently purchased SEVERAL copies of this book . . . I plan to gift my junior high/high school-aged children (and their History/Social Studies teachers) with copies!
[I also plan to GIFT my university library with a copy . . . I love watching 'open-minded' academicians twitch with horror when forced to accept a book written from a conservative perspective!!]
I am interesting in reading this book. Thanks for the ping.
The War was fought because the slavers feared Lincoln. That was it pure and simple. Lincoln did not fight the war to end slavery but those who tried to destroy the Union believed that it would only survive by secession.
Love of slavery more than love of the Union drove the South's political leaders to the mad revolt.
There was no justification for what they did and history should condemn their insanity. Federal power was extremely limited before that insurrection and the army was tiny so the claim of "federal tyranny" is ludicrous. To claim that there was any substantial issue for the Southern leaders other than slavery is just acceptance of fraud. Their revolt was based upon a LIE and the acceptance of that lie by such men as Lee, and Jackson is just tragic.
I remember seeing the wonderful Ken Burns Civil War documentary, where historian Shelby Foote recalled a Confederate soldier in Alabama who was asked why he was fighting against the Union Army.
"Because you're here," replied the soldier.
ML/NJ
No it wasn't.
That's a wonderful testimonial for why the book was written, though.
Best regards...
Only the latter day defenders of the Slaverocracy claim any other reason. Those who led the RAT Revolt all say the same thing that I said. So argue with those who actually led the Insurrection not me, I believe THEM when it comes to THEIR reasons not you or the latter-day Revisionists who abound here.
And the movement for secession did not spring up overnight either since many of the South's political elite had been scheming non-stop for secession for a decade.
Apparently there is a reason the Professor is teaching at Nowheresville College.
In my 58 years I have read scores, if not hundreds, of books about the RAT Rebellion. There is not any evidence that it occurred for ANY other reason than the fear of the South's leaders for their institution. What had been universally condemned by the Founders, North and South, as an abomination was miraculously transformed into a positive good for black and white by the time of the Insurrection.
The ONLY "states' right" the Slavers were worried about retaining was the right to wield the whip, lash and chains. The only "federal tyranny" they had the slightest concern about was the potential confining of their REAL tyranny to the South something they viewed as a death sentence.
What I learned in High School was an attempt to defend the Slavers' treason.
"A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus' Great Discovery to the War on Terror." (Penguin, released 12/29): http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1595230017/qid=1092168718/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/103-2648718-1098216?v=glance&s=books
I urge all Freepers to give our book a look!
Considering both men owned slaves during the war they couldn't have thought it was all THAT evil.
And for a hundred and seventy five year-old person you are surprisingly lucid, seeing that you personally spoke to all those people, and all..
Me? I plan to read the book and actually (gosh, I apologize) potentially learn something!
Though not angry I have no respect for those who attempted to destroy the United States of America or their modern day defenders.
Nor are the writings and speeches of the Slavers a secret rather they are available for any who wish to read them and TO A MAN they clearly state their reason for secession was fear for slavery.
I am sure you will find anything in that book that confirms your mistakes is wonderful while that which stands up for the Truth is commie propaganda.
You're simply wrong. The second book I cited is by UVa's Michael Holt, who is certainly one of the foremost scholars on the coming of the war. He sees evidence, admittedly not the same as every other scholar, but he sees evidence different/differently from them and you.
You may have read a 100 books but if they all say the same thing, maybe you've just wasted your time. I used to think the same as you, but I've opened my eyes. The victors wrote the history you read. (A scholar at another major US university - not UVa, an Ivy League one here in Yankeedom - told me once that the victors were still writing the history 140 years later, and that it was not possible for him or his assocaites to write a completely honest history of the war and maintain his position.) You need to read between the lines in these, and read non-mainstream history like the Adams book. At least for me, he talked about a whole bunch of things I didn't know about and when I went looking in conventional references I found that they mostly all checked out. (Most questionable to me is the suggestion that Lincoln ordered Taney's arrest, but even with this there are some indications that it is true.)
ML/NJ
Looks like an interesting book....will have to check it out.
He exaggerates his situation though. As a college professor, he gets to choose the books or lack of books for his course.
In most of my history classes, in which we focus on a narrow topic, we do not have a textbook. We have several books on the topic/time period and read them.
I for one learn a heck of a lot more than if we had a "real textbook" even though it is a buttload of reading.
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