The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to American History (Politically Incorrect Guides) by Thomas E. Woods Jr. Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to American History (Politically Incorrect Guides)
Book Review: More than meets the eye
Summary: 5 Stars
For many, the title alone works as a sales boost, but the title is also a bit misleading. For that matter, I don't much like the title, since to be "politically incorrect" has become the slogan of every half-baked College Republican bent on backing Bush against campus detractors. This book has nothing to do with such nonsense.
This is not one of those nose-tweaking marketing ploys you see in the history section of major chains, or Rush-Limbaugh-style radio gab. Nor do I find the thesis or argument particularly "conservative," if by that you mean Bush-style nationalism and cultural agitprop.
On the contrary, this is an amazing piece of scholarship - compressed scholarship, to be sure - that reflects vast reading in the best libertarian and Austrian scholarship available, a wonderful short history of the United States, revisionist in all the best ways, that integrates history, politics, and economics.
The high-energy prose is a special feature here. He is thrilled about the chance to tell you how he discovered that much of what he learned from his mainstream history education (Harvard, Columbia) is contradicted by facts and logic. Even from the first pages, when Woods is describing the religious and ideological demographics of the Colonial Period, the reader is aware that he is being taught by a master who loves his subject. He prose burns with a passion to tell the next thing. Rarely do two or three sentences pass when he is not surprising you with a new insight. He is glad he has your attention and does not intend to let it go. So long as you are reading, Woods is going to make sure you get his point and come to believe it. How many academics can write like this? Not many.
The format seems to be designed for a high school student, and certainly the prose is pristine enough to be read by anyone. And yet I'm betting that even (or especially) specialists will learn so much from this book. The author's capacity for reading, processing, and conveying information is a marvel; his first book designed for a mass audience (it is his second in so many months) is even more so.
Book Review: Those who can not do, teach.
Summary: 5 Stars
No wonder 'news-media' credibility these days is zero and sinking. Nearly everyone in media today is a graduate of the kinds of courses, taught by the kinds of professors, skewered to ribbons in this book.
The professors at most American colleges and universities don't know anything at all it seems. Their view of culture and history is so warped that they literally worship people like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and others who make their living by telling gullible crowds that The United States of America, and that has made the USA a success, is to blame for everything that is wrong with the world.
Well, no one ever claimed that the USA is perfect, and yes there have been problems. But they have been resolved without destroying the country.
The criticisms of academia here are done with fineesse; Thomas Woods reveals the idiocy of intellectualoids by quoting them, and then citing (with numerous references) the facts. Facts, notes Thomas Woods, are not important in most so-called higher education today. What matters in what is called higher ed, is that the facts are arranged to mold the thinking of students, and to promote a narrow set of ideological perspectives.
"McCarthyism", the great epithet howled by liberals every time someone challenges their entitlement to anything, is practiced with vigor in most American colleges and universities today, Woods reveals. Conservatives are routinely denied tenure, and ostracized from most social activities on campuses. The work of eonservative students is almost routinely deprecated for violating unwritten coded of political correctness -- to the point where ther are almost no conservatives enrolled in liberal arts or humanities programs today. Intellectually, the liberal arts, history, and humanities departments have become incestuous, monolithic, intolerant of diversity in thought or writing, and they are flat out wrong about most things. The questions raised about what is being taught in liberal arts and humaniites courses reveals why most graduates from such programs have a hard time finding good jobs (short answer: employers are not looking for skills like 'revealing that America's founders were evil slaveholding slumlords', or 'capitalism is evil because if focuses on profits', etc...)
Oh, just for the record, (and for those who have not read any of Ann Coulter's books) Thomas Woods examined the facts and concluded that Joseph McCarthy was essentially correct in his claims and assertions concerning the State Department (it was full of communists), and the Democratic Party (20 years of treason) when he was a Senator.
Through the examples in "The Guide", Mr. Woods also reveals that the far left has been very strategic in their use of academia. One of the strengths of America (which drove its rapid growth) was the decentralized political structure, where a central government had limited and enumerated powers, and the several states were largely sovereign. Woods shows how deliberate falsiying of history in particular has resulted in a concentration and centralizing of power in the federal government -- particularly the judiciary and other non-elective components.
Whis it is not within the scope of the text, the 2004 elections were a powerful cultural rejection of the liberal agenda. Using imperious unelected federal agencies or courts to erect a supreme dictatorship that effectively abolishes the concept of a republic was forcefully rejected by the people. The election resuilts severely undermine a central claim of liberal academics (noted by Woods) that their aims and purposes are altruistic and selfless. The public sees that the growth of centralized authoritarianism is not in their interests. But it is in the direct interests of academics who rely upon federal grants and other largesse received from the federal treasury.
The biggest problem with this book is that in only 250-pages, it is not nearly long enough to refute all of the lies of academia. Maybe that is why his focus is on history.
Certainly, this book is an eye opener. It is also a relatively 'easy read'; it is not preachy or didactic, and it uses a relatively conversational style of prose to communicate concepts and facts.
At the very least, it should cause those who believe that government programs create jobs, while businesses destroy them; or that taxing the rich is the only fair way to enrich the poor (and other liberal nonsense) to wonder why America succeeded, while so many others failed. Like the leaders of the French Revolution who intended to do for France what America's founders did, the academic left has so misread the facts, and has such strong idiological biases, that they can not really ever hope to succeed with anything but mass destruction. academic historians begin with a set of false premises, and then proceed to make arguments based on their initial [wrong] axioms. French Revolutionaries dethroned a king and ended up with a dictatorship.
Book Review: Deception In The Educational System
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is amazing! Everything you always wanted to know (and SHOULD know) about our great country is contained here. Why doesn't the educational system have this information? Dr.Woods' data comes from very real sources--it's actually out there, folks. It took someone with heart and passion and courage to find it for us and deliver it in this format!
The author has done all the hard work, leaving us with a wonderful tool and resource from which to glean what we need to sound intelligent about this great nation of ours. What I learned in grammar and high school was not the truth! I actually feel deceived!
Now, having read this great volume of facts, I feel empowered. Dr.Woods makes his case for so many facets of our history with grace and dignity--merely telling the story in an easy to understand format, using anecdotes and tidbits that will amaze the reader along the way.
This is a must-read for everyone----everyone!
Thank you, Dr. Woods, for revealing the truth in such a graceful, unassuming manner.
Book Review: Unlearn Your History
Summary: 5 Stars
Thomas Woods, Jr. (who holds a doctorate in history from Columbia University) presents a quick survey of American history from the "politically incorrect" (paleoconservative/paleolibertarian) perspective. Although not a substitute for a comprehensive U.S. history, it effectively refutes many of the more common claims by leftists, such as the Puritans were racists and the U.S. Constitution was meant to prohibit states and localities from enacting laws concerning religion. He points out that Joe McCarthy (for all his flaws) was correct that large numbers of government employees were commies. As he notes, the same libs who have a cow about Joe McCarthy can't get worked up over the New York Times columnist Walter Duranty covering up the crimes of Joe Stalin. He even rescues Operation Keelhaul (in which the U.S. sent Russians back to Stalin to be murdered or worked to death) from obscurity.
THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE has a common theme: most of the misrepresentations of our history have the result of increasing in the power of the federal government to the expense of the states. Why is it that most our "great" presidents got us into war, increased the power of their office, and expanded the scope of the federal government? Not too long ago, conservatives actually had unkind things to say about FDR and his machinations that lead us into war. Prof. Woods puts it all in perspective.
The only weakness of this work is that while it is reasonably lengthy (250 pages), it isn't nearly long enough to refute all of the more common leftist mischaracterization of American history. Dr. Woods didn't have the space to refute such "urban legends" as the Iroquois Confederation inspired the U.S. Constitution, a quarter of the cowboys were black, the West was lawless, and Chief Seattle wrote the words to "Peace Train" (ok, I made the last one up).
Book Review: High School (& even college ) history is wrong, wrong,wrong
Summary: 5 Stars
if you like this book, check out lewrockwell.com for great thomas woods articles. how capitalism saved america is also an excellent read.
this book is not, i repeat, not full of conspiracy theories or the like. he wrote this as a text for his students, and is having them compare it to a conventional history text. (he states this in his book.)
if you think you know about american history, read this book. it may not surprise you as much as clear up that "i always knew there was something fishy going on" feeling.