Posted on 12/27/2014 4:29:15 AM PST by iowamark
Larry Schweikart recently spoke at the Heritage Foundation about the newly released 10th anniversary edition of the book he co-authored with Michael Allen, “A Patriot’s History of the United States: From Columbus’s Great Discovery to America’s Age of Entitlement.”
“A Patriot’s History” had a rather unusual journey from publication to fame; becoming a No.1 New York Times bestseller six years after its publication.
Schweikart, a history professor at the University of Dayton, wrote the book in response to what he calls a lack of textbooks that “dealt accurately and fairly with American history.”
Many of the existing classroom materials, he said, display “antipathy towards free markets” and conduct “a love affair with big government.”
In his view, these books write off all that is good about America and condemn it as a nation founded by old, rich, white men.
“Do you want unsuccessful losers drafting your laws? I want the guys who know what they’re doing,” said Schweikart.
One of these books, “A People’s History of the United States,” by revisionist historian Howard Zinn, particularly irks Schweikart.
“Zinn has no sources. I tell students, ‘Go to the back and look at his sources.’ They say ‘Oh, he doesn’t have any.’ Exactly!” said Schweikart.
So, he decided to “wage a guerilla war against the textbook industry” by writing his own.
Despite being sent to a plethora of publishers, the book received two offers. He chose one and hoped for the best.
“I thought I was going to be selling the book out of the back of a van with Ho-Hos, good light bulbs and loose cigarettes,” said Schweikart.
The publisher insisted that its original title, “A Cup of Hope,” be scrapped, and the 1,700-page book be trimmed to less than 1,000, so the book could be sold for less than $25.
The book was modestly successful. Six years later, everything changed.
In 2010, Schweikart made an appearance on Glenn Beck’s program on Fox News.
A few days later, Schweikart received a call from Beck in which the host apologized for not reading the book beforehand and told Schweikart how much he enjoyed it.
When Schweikart tuned in to Beck’s next show, he was discussing “A Patriot’s History” at length, brandishing it in front of the camera complete with highlights and sticky notes, and asking that his viewers read it “like George Foreman selling a grill on an infomercial.”
The book suddenly skyrocketed up the bestseller lists.
Schweikart said his publisher would call him and say things like “We’re going to be on the New York Times bestseller list!” or “We’re going to be in the top 10 on the New York Times bestseller list!”
Schweikart always responded modestly, “Oh, that’s nice.”
Finally, he got a call that the book was No.1.
Schweikart laughed at the “popping corks” in the background and responded as he always did to his publisher’s call.
“Don’t you understand what this means?” his publisher cried incredulously. “It’s going to be in Walmart!”
“We’re going to be in Walmart? Praise Jesus!” exclaimed Schweikart.
Schweikart said he wrote the book for the average American rather than “academics” or “elites,” and that if the book was available at Walmart, he had succeeded.
The new edition of the book goes through 2013 and President Obama’s first term.
Schweikart’s conclusion?
“[Jimmy Carter] finally has somebody worse than himself and Millard Fillmore.”
In the new edition, Schweikart also examined George Bush’s presidency and what his “biggest mistake” was (here’s a hint: He doesn’t think it wasn’t Iraq).
Schweikart also offered his take as to why America has been successful.
“Constitutions don’t enforce freedom, but the mindset of the people who enforce the Constitution,” said Schweikart.
Schweikart’s latest project is called Rockin’ the Wall, a documentary about rock music’s contribution to bringing down the Iron Curtain.
Speech at The Heritage Foundation:
http://www.heritage.org/events/2014/12/patriots-history
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBvvG0vQgjI
A great after-Christmas present for myself.
I own it and I have read it.
I’m glad Larry did this.
‘Pod.
Rockin' Behind the Iron Curtain--Bobby Marchan & the Clowns (1959)
The Berlin Top Ten--Didkie Goodman (1961)
There is a need for another American history book, and one that would likely be banned in most of the public high schools in the US.
As Mel Gibson’s movie, The Patriot, was a whole lot different than the little Revolutionary War history that is taught in schools today, the truth of Colonial and early America is that it was a time of savagery, in an age of savagery, and that the colonists had to be exceptionally tough people to not just survive, but prosper.
While the colonists had taken the east coast, they were effectively blocked from moving inland by the northern and southern Indian confederations. And only by extraordinary luck were they able to make the westward expansion.
To start with, before the colonists had arrived, the northern and southern tribes had a horrific war, so murderous that they had made what is now most of the state of Kentucky a gigantic “neutral zone”, that hunting parties could enter but was forbidden to encampment by either confederation. The reason was that Kentucky was strategically vital, for both east-west and north south travel. A great crossroads, that remained so through the later US Civil War.
In any event, the colonists were stuck on the east coast, but just then, the British deported a very belligerent and tough people, the “Scots Borderers” to the colonies. And having no place on the east coast to settle, the colonists sent them to occupy the Kentucky region.
Because it was a neutral zone to the Indians, the Borderers were able to move in and set up forts before either confederation wised up. And then they were tough enough to resist the brutal efforts by the confederations to kick them out. The end result was a passage west from the colonies, the beginning of westward expansion.
Neither the northern or southern tribes were happy with this, and in the North, two ridiculously brutal wars followed: first the French and Indian War, which at times became “no quarters” slaughters; and then, with the British victory, this lead to Pontiac’s Rebellion, which was hideous, but finally broke the back of the northern confederation.
The southern confederation remained intact, and a major threat, until Andrew Jackson, who had formerly allied with the Indians to kick out the French, turned against them an ethnically cleansed them from east of the Mississippi, an event known today as “The Trail of Tears”.
As America expanded West, it fought for every foot of land, against the Plains Indians, and then the western Indians.
In any event, things like these should be available at the high school level, to dispel any notions that committee meetings, hand wringing, and “Kumbaya” achieve more than diddly-squat in the real world.
But this being said, most high schools wouldn’t permit this book anywhere near their libraries.
LOL! good light bulbs... FReeper humor!!!!
I tend to emphasize attrition. The settlers just kept coming, with new waves of immigrants pushing on past the graves of the fallen, while the Indians could not replace their losses.
Prior to the Revolution, the British government tried to restrain the westward movement, but the settlers were gradually pushing inland anyhow. After the Revolution, the pace accelerated. The eastern woodland Indians were simply too thin on the ground to resist the spread of an agricultural population.
It is interesting to speculate on what might have happened if the disease wave had not decimated Indian numbers. The Indians who remained when the overland settlers showed up still practiced some agriculture, just not enough to support the numbers required to mount an effective resistance. Little Turtle and Tecumseh are probably the last two Indian leaders to mount a resistance that actually meant much. After them, it was just a long, bloody mop up operation.
Impressive book.
It was his consistent refusal to fight back against the leftist media campaign against him.
European crowd diseases did the bulk of destruction against the Indian.
This is our very own Freeper LS.
Wonderful article about you, LS.
Another contribution by FR to America.
A must read!
When I was in school, we were taught that the Europeans encountered a largely empty North American wilderness inhabited by perhaps a million Indians. This perception was based on the perfectly honest, but naïve, accounts of the early settlers. We now know that 90% or more of the Indian populations died before Europeans ever laid eyes on them. Central America, of course, is a different story.
“It is interesting to speculate on what might have happened if the disease wave had not decimated Indian numbers.”
I’m currently reading “Guns, Germs and Steel” — which is an attempt to ‘get at’ why Eurpoeans and Asians came to dominate the globe. Much of it is due to higher population densities that resulted from a highly successful agricultural & herding economy. This resulted in many widespread human diseases, and a higher degree of immunity to same. So when European explorers set foot in the Americas, that first contact started waves of epidemics that decimated native populations, but not the reverse. This left the Americas wide open to colonization.
Smallpox, yes. Tuberculosis and syphilis, no.
But for the most part, the disease wave preceded settlement by many decades.
That was certainly true in South America, and most of Central and North America, but with islands or refugia that escaped the disease. In California it was probably not true, and for reasons that would surprise you. BTW, this is original research on my part that is causing not a little consternation among wildlife biologists and archaeologists.
We now know that 90% or more of the Indian populations died before Europeans ever laid eyes on them.
No, we don't "know." That is an estimated number; it is not knowledge. The arguments are ongoing. Hell we don't know enough about vegetative composition and carrying capacity to make such a projection reliably.
LS, just got the ebook from B&N. Thanks!
Thanks. I really hope you’ll also look at “A Patriot’s History of the Modern World,” which covers the whole world. I think it’s every bit as good as PHUSA, but it hasn’t caught on.
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