What History Should Be

MIDWAY THROUGH the twentieth century, historian Richard Hofstader, in his book "The American Political Tradition", examined our important national leaders, from Jefferson and Jackson to Herbert Hoover and the two Roosevelts - republicans and democrats,liberals and conservatives. Hofstader concluded that "the range of vision embraced by the primary contestants in the major parties has always been bounded by the horizons of property and enterprise...They have accepted the economic virtues of capitalistic culture as necessary qualities of man...That culture has been intensely nationalistic..." Observing the last twenty five years of the twentieth century and the first thirteen years of the twenty first, we have seen, and continue to see, exactly that limited vision Hofstader talked about -- a capitalistic encouragement of enormous fortunes alongside desperate poverty, and a nationalistic acceptance of war and preparations for war. Government power swung from republicans to democrats and back again, but neither party showed itself capable of going beyond that vision. All the so called "liberal" political leader we have had over the past few decades, including Barack Obama, have in reality been moderate conservatives, unwilling to propose any real change economically, or politically. After the disastrous war in Viet Nam came the scandals of watergate. There was a deepening economic insincerity for most of the population, along with environmental deterioration, and a growing culture of violence and family disarray. Clearly, such fundamental problems could not be solved without bold changes in the social and economic structure. But no major party candidates proposed such changes. The "American political tradition" held fast. Historian Howard Zinn, who believed that history should be the history of the people, rather than of an elite few, was among the few well known American historians who told the truth about American history. "A People's History of the United States" talks about all American, not just a few powerful ones. Richard Hofstader came close, as did Gore Vidal. Good historians tend to be liberals. Why? Because liberalism is change, and history is change. Change happens from necessity, from an inadequate or unacceptable status quo, and thus the history of any nation or culture is a history of change and change is seldom without pain, suffering, and unpleasant truths. No history written honestly about any nation which ever existed can leave the reader regarding that nation with only admiration. There are no purely admirable national histories, including American. Any history which makes any country appear purely virtuous is "hagiography", a form of myth, not history. And above all else, history is, or should be, the history of everyone, not of the elite few.