History for Dummies...and Determined to Stay that Way

I always thought that Paul Johnson was supposed to be the Right-Wings Answer to Howard Zinn. After all we cannot expect Richard Brookheiser to write sop-notes to history about every aspect of it, he's still got more founding fathers to write about.

But the problem with Paul Johnson (other than describing Harding as a "great" President and Hoover as being too pro-Active in fighting the Wall Street Crash) is that he actually is a good writer, who writes densely (and I mean that in an intelligent fashion).

So, it appears that the Right-Wing has decided to bring forth the Cliff-Notes version of History...only with slanted factual errors thrown in.

As Slate reports:

Several weeks ago, a history book called The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, by Thomas E. Woods Jr., a hitherto unknown assistant professor at Suffolk County Community College in New York, appeared on the New York Times paperback best-seller chart. User-friendly in its layout, the book is chock-full of pull-quotes, subheads, bulleted lists, short sentences, and two- and three-sentence paragraphs. It presents a brisk tour of U.S. history from Colonial to Clintonian times, filtered through a lens of far-right dogma, circa 1939.

Far-Right? 1939? Ann Coulter is already both "wet" and "stiff".

It would be tedious to debunk The Politically Incorrect Guide chapter by chapter. Suffice it to say that the book asserts that the American Revolution was no revolution at all; that the Civil War was not about slavery; that the so-called robber barons made America great; that the New Deal made the Depression worse; that the war on poverty made poverty worse; that Clinton's intervention in Bosnia was a waste of taxpayer money. Not only does Woods reduce complex events to these kinds of simplistic interpretations, he doesn't even acknowledge that rival interpretations exist. It's history not as analysis but as catechism.

It's important to stress that Woods' disdain for complexity in the interest of promoting conservative orthodoxy has drawn fire from across the political spectrum. After all, conservatives such as Max Boot, Cathy Young, and the historian Ronald Radosh have attacked the book as beyond the pale. These commentators deserve credit for renouncing the book. But many less scrupulous rightists, including various radio hosts and cable TV loudmouths Sean Hannity and Pat Buchanan—whose own similar stab at far-right-wing history caused him considerable grief in 1999—have provided Woods with a friendly forum for his cant.

Gee, what a surprise that Reich Minister without Portfolio Buchanon and Reknowned Simpleton Hannity would have such lofty praise. It is unlikely that Hannity has ever read anything more complicated than a Highlights Magazine picture puzzle and Buchanan weeps with glee at any opportunity to manufacture an America of Parson Weems.

Odious is too weak a word to describe this.