The Importance of History

by David Crabtree

History is important. In centuries past this statement would have seemed

self-evident. Ancient cultures devoted much time and effort to teaching their
children family history. It was thought that the past helps a child understand
who he is. Modern society, however, has turned its back on the past. We live
in a time of rapid change, a time of progress. We prefer to define ourselves in
terms of where we are going, not where we come from. Our ancestors hold no
importance for us. They lived in times so different from our own that they are
incapable of shedding light on our experience. Man is so much smarter now
than he was even ten years ago that anything from the past is outdated and
irrelevant to us. Therefore the past, even the relatively recent past, is, in the
minds of most of us, enshrouded by mists and only very vaguely perceived.
Our ignorance of the past is not the result of a lack of information, but of
indifference. We do not believe that history matters.

But history does matter. It has been said that he who controls the past
controls the future. Our view of history shapes the way we view the present,
and therefore it dictates what answers we offer for existing problems. Let me
offer a few examples to indicate how this might be true.

One of my children comes running up to me, Papa, Stefan hit me! Another
child comes close on the heels of the first, I did not. You hit me! As a parent
I have to determine what happened. Usually I have to sort through conflicting
testimony to get to the truth of the matter. Part of my information is my
knowledge of human beings in general; part of my information is the
knowledge I have assembled over the lifetimes of these particular children.
All of this is essentially history. It is knowledge about the past. I must have a
good understanding of the past in order to know how to deal wisely with
these children in the present. Any punishment or chastisement will depend on
my reconstruction of what actually happened. The children realize this, and
thus they present very selective histories of the event in an attempt to
dictate my response. In these kinds of situations, children very clearly
understand that history matters.

When you go into a doctors office for the first time, you invariably have to fill
out an information sheet that asks about your medical history. Some of these
forms are very detailed, asking questions that require information from rarely
accessed memory banks. Why does a doctor ask these questions? The doctor
is trying to construct an accurate picture of your state of health. Your health
is heavily influenced by the past. Your heredity, past behaviors, past
experiences are all important determinants and clues to your present
condition. Whenever you return to the doctor, he or she pulls out a file which
contains all the notes from past visits. This file is a history of your health.
Doctors understand very clearly that the past matters.

Some of you might be thinking that these examples are not very compelling
because they both deal with the very recent pastthey are not what we think
of when we think of history. Let me give one final example that is more to the
point. In 1917 the Communists took control of Russia. They began to exercise
control over how the history of their country ought to be told. They depicted
the tsar as oppressive and cruel. The leaders of the revolution, on the other
hand, were portrayed in a very positive light. The Communist government
insisted that these leaders, and in particular Lenin, understood more clearly
than any one else what Russia needed and what course of action the
government ought to follow. According to the official history, Lenin made no
mistakes and he passed his virtually infallible understanding on to the other
leaders of the party. The official history presented Lenin and Stalin as kind,
compassionate, wise, nearly divine leaders. Consequently, difficulties that
people in the Soviet Union experienced were all attributable to capitalism.
The nations economic backwardness, the need for a massive military and
tight security, and domestic crime were all ultimately tied to the influence of
capitalistic countries. This is the perspective of history that was taught to
Soviet children for half a century.

In the seventies and eighties, several things happened to shake peoples

confidence in this view of history. One was the publication of Solzhenitsyns
Gulag Archipelago. This work was the product of years of historical research
by the author. He interviewed scores of prisoners and did extensive research
to chronicle the genesis and development of the chain of labor camps that
dotted the Soviet Union. His book described the cruelty and injustice of the
system in great detail; but most important of all, he was able to show that
Lenin and Stalin were active and knowing participants in the formation of this
brutal institution.

Solzhenitsyns depiction of these leaders was incompatible with the official

history. And if the official history was wrong, the legitimacy and justification
for Soviet rule was all brought into question. In 1979, a Soviet emigre, after
having read Gulag Archipelago, told me, The impact of this book will be far
more devastating to Soviet power than an atomic bomb. I am convinced that
one of the reasons the Soviet Union disintegrated is because people began to
doubt the official history. Ask Gorbachev if history matters.

I. A DEFINITION OF HISTORY

So history matters, but what is history? My advisor in graduate school had a

simple definition that I have grown to appreciate: History is a story about the
past that is significant and true. This simple definition contains two words
packed with meaning which must be understood in order to understand
history.

A. Significance

The first word is significant. No one could record everything that is true
about an event in the past: temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, soil
type, molecules bouncing around, hearts beating, lungs inflating and
deflating, and so forththere is no end to what could be listed. History is the
process of simplifying. Of all that could be said about an event, what is most
important or most significant? The goal of history is to tell a story about the
past which captures the essence of an event while omitting superfluous
details.

Significance is determined by the historian. The historian sorts through the

evidence and presents only that which, given his particular world view, is
significant. What a historian finds significant is not entirely a personal choice;
it is largely shaped by his training and his colleagues. In order for a historian
to have his works published, he has to receive the approval of his fellow
historians. Therefore, the community of historians has a large say in deciding
what about the past is significant. But historians are just as much a part of
society as anyone else, and we are all greatly influenced by those around us.

As a result, the community of historians tends to share the same notion of

significance as is held by society as a whole. Therefore, historians tend to tell
stories which reflect the dominant values of the society in which they live.

This leads to a curious feature of historical narrative: the past is fixedno

one can change what happenedbut as the values of society change, the
historians depiction of the past changes also. It has been argued that history
tells us more about the time in which it is written than the time about which it
is written. I recently did some reading about the history of homosexuality. For
a couple of decades in the middle of the nineteenth century, historians
viewed homosexuality as an immoral act and consequently looked at the
prevalence of homosexuality in ancient Greece as a sign of its moral
decadence and a precursor to the collapse of Greek civilization. Historians
then applied this same analysis to Roman society. In the latter part of the
nineteenth century, however, society began to question the existence of
moral absolutes. As a result, historians ceased to give credence to any
connection between moral behavior and the health of a civilization.
Therefore, the search for a connection between moral decline and the fall of
empire ceased to hold any interest and was abandoned. Instead, historians,
interested in telling the story of the growth and development of liberty, saw
the open practice of homosexuality as a good thing, in that it demonstrated
greater social tolerance and, therefore, increased personal liberty. Notice that
the first view (based on moral absolutes) was not disproved; it was simply
abandoned due to a change in the values of society. This, in turn, produced a
change in the way historians depicted the past. The past does not change,
but history changes with every generation.

B. Truth

I said that history is a story about the past that is significant and true. I have
talked about the word significant; now I want to talk about the word true.
What does it mean to say that a historical account is true? Most modern
historians would claim there is no absolute truth. This would imply there is no
basis for saying that one historical account is true and another one false. I
know of no historian, however, who actually operates this way in practice.
Most historians use the word true to mean any perspective well supported
by facts.

The tricky thing is that every historian uses facts to build his case. Rarely
does an historian consciously distort the facts; and although minor factual
errors are common, they seldom undermine the overall presentation. But
even though most histories are built on facts, the histories can be very
different, even contradictory, because falsehoods can be constructed solely
with facts.

My parents once put in a new front lawn. Soon after it was planted, my
mother discovered bicycle tracks running across the yard. She had a pretty
good idea who had done it, so she asked this boy if he knew anything about
the tracks. He said, Yes, I do. My sisters bike did it. This is a wonderfully
crafted statement. It is built on facts, but it is designed to create a false
impression. We often refer to such statements as half-truths. For history to
be true, it must not only be based on facts, it must present those facts in a
balanced, well proportioned manner. Too often histories are half-truths.

I need to point out quickly that most historians do not intentionally distort
history to serve their purposes, as this boy did. The process is much less
malicious, yet far more insidious. Historians interpret evidence through the
eyes of their own world view. This is natural; we could not expect anything
else. This has far reaching consequences, however. Take, for example, a
historian studying the story of Jonathan and David. If all of the historians
close same-sex relationships have been sexual, he will be unable to conceive
of Jonathan and Davids relationship as being anything else. Thus he will
conclude that David and Jonathan were homosexuals. Given his experience,
he can not imagine any other interpretation of the evidence. Therefore, the
accuracy of an historians version of past events depends greatly on the
soundness of his world view.

I suspect this is contrary to most peoples image of history. People generally

think of history as a very objective discipline. This perspective dominated the
field about a century ago, and most of us were led to believe this in the
course of our education. We were taught that objective historians began to
piece together a picture of the past, and every new generation of historians
discovers new facts which alter our understanding of the past. With each
generation, therefore, we get closer to the truth of history, but these
refinements do not significantly alter the assured findings of science.

This perspective would find few adherents today. It has become painfully
obvious that no researcher is a blank slate. We all start with some
preconceived notions about what is true and what is not. It should not and
can not be otherwise. All history is, in this sense, biased.

For the reasons I have listed, history is a value-laden discipline. Howard Zinn,
the author of a book to which we will return in a minute, makes the following
statement:

It is not that the historian can avoid emphasis of some facts and not of
others. This is as natural to him as to the mapmaker, who, in order to produce
a usable drawing for practical purposes, must first flatten and distort the
shape of the earth, then choose out of the bewildering mass of geographic
information those things needed for the purpose of this or that particular
map.

My argument cannot be against selection, simplification, emphasis, which are

inevitable for both cartographers and historians. But the mapmakers
distortion is a technical necessity for a common purpose shared by all people
who need maps. The historians distortion is more than technical, it is
ideological; it is released into a world of contending interests, where any
chosen emphasis supports (whether the historian means to or not) some kind
of interest, whether economic or political or racial or national or sexual.
(Note 1)

II. HISTORY EXAMPLES

History, by its very nature, does more than tell us about the past; it argues
for an ideology a world view.

1992 gave us an excellent opportunity to see a struggle between different

groups each trying to claim history in support of their cause. It was the 500th
anniversary of Columbuss landing on American soil. Columbus, who had long
enjoyed the status of hero, came under heavy criticism. This historical event
and the versions of history it generated are a very good example of what I
have been talking about. I would like to look at two descriptions of this event

and show how ideology infuses both accounts. One account is found in The
Light and the Glory by Peter Marshall and David Manuel. (Note 2) The other is
from A Peoples History of the United States by Howard Zinn.

Both of these books were written at the end of the 1970s. For a quarter of a
century prior to this time, the most noted historian of the life of Columbus
was Samuel Eliot Morison. He wrote several books about Columbus, but the
most widely read was Christopher Columbus, Mariner. (Note 3) Until the late
seventies, Morisons depiction of Columbus was considered the most
authoritative. Since both Marshalls and Zinns books were written to correct
Morisons presentation, let me first describe Morisons perspective.

A. Morison: Columbus, the mariner

Morison was a naval officer (so I have heard) turned historian. His love of the
sea and appreciation for good seamanship is obvious in his history. Morison
has enormous respect and admiration for Columbus as a sailor and navigator.
This and this alone was Columbuss greatness. At a time when all of Europe
was trying to find economical routes to Asia, Columbus was convinced that
Asia could easily be reached by sailing west across the Atlantic. Most scholars
of the time believed that the world was round and that Asia could be reached
by sailing west, but they thought it was too far. Columbus argued that the
scholarly opinion greatly overestimated the distance and that Asia was only
about a three week voyage. As it turned out, the scholars were right; Asia
was too far away, but fortunately for Columbus, America was just about
where he thought Asia would be.

Columbus undertook the trip to prove that he was right. His superior sailing
skills enabled the expedition to reach America. Columbus thought he had
landed in Asia, and he spent the rest of his life trying to prove he was correct.
This drove him to be in constant search for gold and more geographical
knowledge: since Asia was known to be rich in gold, a vast amount of gold
would suggest that the land was, in fact, Asia; and since Marco Polo had
written about the geography of Asia, Columbus felt further exploration would
demonstrate that he had found the land Marco Polo described. Columbuss
constant exploration and search for gold led him to make some poor
decisions regarding the administration of the lands he discovered; his
negligence resulted in brutal treatment of the native population. Although

Morison does not excuse Columbuss negligence, he does not want this flaw
to detract from our appreciation for Columbuss skills as a seaman.

B. Peter Marshall: Columbus, the tool of God

Peter Marshall has a very different perspective. He sees Columbus as a key

figure in Gods grand plan to establish a very special country, unique in the
history of the world. Just as God selected Israel to be a special nation which
He promised to bless as long as the people were obedient to His
commandments, God singled out the United States for a similar purpose:

Could it be that we Americans, as a people, were meant to be a light to

lighten the Gentiles (Luke 2:23)a demonstration to the world of how God
intended His children to live together under the Lordship of Christ? Was our
vast divergence from this blueprint, after such a promising beginning, the
reason why we now seem to be heading into a new dark age? (p. 19)

Marshalls book, therefore, chronicles the indications of Gods special

guidance of key individuals in the history of the United States.

Columbus is one of those individuals. Marshall sees the hand of God behind
Columbuss voyage from its very inception. He quotes from one of
Columbuss writings:

It was the Lord who put into my mind I could feel his hand upon me) the
fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies. All who heard of
my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me. There is no question that
the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit, because He comforted me with rays
of marvelous inspiration from the Holy Scripture. (p. 17)

Marshall is very sensitive to indications of Gods divine guidance and

protection for Columbuss venture and Columbuss personal relationship with
God.

Marshall begins by pointing out that Columbuss first name is Christopher,

which means Christ-bearer. He sees this as significant because one of the
main reasons Columbus gave for wanting to find Asia was to evangelize its
inhabitants. Columbuss name was, therefore, prophetic.

Marshall describes the difficulty Columbus had in finding a sponsor for his
expedition. He tried but failed to get the king of Portugal to finance his trip.
He got nowhere with the king of England. He approached the king and queen
of Spain, but they kept putting him off. Having given up on the Spanish
monarchs and at a point of desperation, he was about to leave for France to
ask the French king to finance his expedition when the queen of Spain had a
change of heart. Marshall points out that the queens confessor, who was the
head of the monastery where Columbus was staying, was instrumental in
convincing the queen of the value of the enterprise. Marshall imagines what
might have transpired between the monk and Columbus while Columbus was
in despair over his inability to find a sponsor.:

But in the cool stone cloister of the monastery, we can almost hear Father
Perez as he might have reminded Christopher that all of the things which had
tormented himthe elusive recognition, wealth and position which he wanted
so desperately and which always seemed just out of reachthese were the
worlds inducements, not the things that concerned the Lord Jesus. (p. 34)

[Let me take this opportunity to make a short digression. I do not think

Marshall's book is accepted as a serious work of history. One of the reasons is
because the author occasionally inserts these imaginary scenes for which he
has absolutely no evidence. I would like to point out, however, that this
criticism is a little unfair. The mind of any historian is constantly at work
trying to imagine the event under investigation. The evidence is always less
than complete, and the historian tries to fill in the missing pieces, by drawing
on his knowledge of reality and general human experience to extrapolate
what must have happened. So whereas Marshall has actually recorded his
imaginings, and serious historians do not, we must nevertheless acknowledge
that all historians use their imaginations to fill out the picture, and this affects
the way they tell the story.]

Marshall describes Columbuss first crossing as a major test of Columbuss

faith in God. Early on, the voyage went extremely well, but as the time went

on with no land in sight, the crew became very fearful. On October 9th, there
was almost a mutiny, but Columbus reached an agreement to sail west three
more days before turning back. For the next three days, the sailing conditions
improved dramatically, and on the third day, at the end of the day, they
finally sighted land. Marshalls description of this voyage puts less emphasis
on Columbuss skills as a seaman and great emphasis on the indications of
providential guidance. From Marshalls perspective, Columbuss skill was just
one more instance of Gods blessing on the venture. Of infinitely more
importance to Marshall is how Columbus responded to this test of his faith,
for the success or failure of the mission hinged on this.

Marshall concluded that Columbus responded well to the test of his faith
while at sea, but after Columbus reached America he made two serious
errors. The first mistake was establishing a precedent for mistreatment of the
Indians. While Columbus generally treated the Indians fairly well, he did them
one very serious injusticehe forcibly took several Indians back to Spain with
him to become interpreters. This set a very bad precedent for the treatment
of Indians, which became much more brutal with later explorers. Marshall
holds Columbus partially responsible for this. The other error Columbus
committed was to embark on a search for gold. From Marshalls perspective,
Columbus became preoccupied with a thirst for gold and this corrupted him:

Goldone can see the hand of the Devil here. Unable to overcome the
faith of the Christ-bearer by sowing fear and dissension in the hearts of his
men or by paralyzing him with despair, Satan had failed to keep the Light of
Christ from establishing a beachhead in practically the only part of the world
in which he still reigned unchallenged. So he now moved to destroy the army
of holy invaders from within their ranks. And he chose the one instrument
which almost never failed: the love of money. (p. 42)

Behind the scenes, Marshall sees a grand conflict between God and the godly
and Satan and his forces. Gold is the tool Satan used to distract Columbus
from his divinely appointed mission.

Columbuss thirst for gold and his rejection of Gods mission for him caused
God to afflict Columbus with a series of tragedies. While Columbus went to
Spain to report his find, he left a small number of Spaniards in the New World.
He returned to America only to discover that these men had been massacred

by the Indians who were exasperated by the Spaniards cruel, greedmotivated treatment. The men he brought with him on the second trip were
even more consumed with a desire for gold; they not only fought with Indians
for gold, they fought with each other. When word of the chaos and
maladministration reached the king and queen, they sent a new governor and
had Columbus returned from his second trip in chains. The king and queen
freed him from his chains, but he was nevertheless humiliated. Later, he was
afflicted with grandiose illusions of being called by God to lead a crusade
against the infidels in the Holy Land. After several years, Columbus returned
to America, but now he, too, was obsessed with desire for gold. He finally
found a major deposit of gold, but by this time Columbus was almost out of
touch with reality. Marshall writes: It is doubtful that he who does what he
will in the world is going to be used to bring many souls to Paradise. This
particular narrative goes on to reveal just how far off-center Columbuss
thinking had wandered: For by the same sort of weird, convoluted reasoning
that earmarks Gnosticism and so much of occult metaphysics, Columbus
arrived at a monumental conclusion: he was convinced that he had found
King Solomons mines! (p. 65) This dementia was divine punishment for
Columbuss refusal to look constantly to God for deliverance from his
difficulties.

Finding a major source of gold opened a Pandoras box of problems. It

brought the conquistadors to America. These men inflicted countless
atrocities on the native population, further proof of divine judgment on
Columbus and his enterprise.

According to Marshall, God had a glorious role for Columbus to play in the
history of mankind, but Columbus was distracted by gold and nearly driven
mad because he refused to trust God. Marshall speculates, however, that
Columbus, on his death bed, was reconciled to God:

The old man brushed away the tears at the corners of his eyes, and
perhaps he spoke to God again then, for the first time in a long while.
Father, it is over now, isnt it?
Yes, son, he might have heard in his heart.
Father, Im afraid I have not done well in carrying the Light of Your Son to
the West. Im sorry. I pray that others will carry the light further.

They will. You are forgiven.

Its time now, isnt it? Yes.
(p. 65-66)

C. Howard Zinn: Columbus, the oppressor

Howard Zinns portrayal of Columbus could scarcely be more different from

Marshalls. His presentation is rooted in a very different understanding of the
essence and value of history. Zinn is outraged by the traditional practice of
telling the history of a nation as though all members of that nation shared the
same interests. This illusion of cohesion within a nation hides the reality that
every society includes oppressors and the oppressed. Zinn thinks history
should tell the story of this all important struggle, regardless of national
divisions. He hopes we might learn from such a history how to help the
oppressed successfully rise up against their oppressors.

From this perspective, Columbus is the quintessential oppressor. From the

outset of the expedition Columbus was intent on extracting wealth from the
native. Zinn demonstrates Columbuss malevolent motives by quoting
Columbuss words from the log on the day he first saw the Indians:

They. . . brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other
things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks bells. They
willingly traded everything they owned . . . They were well built, with good
bodies and handsome features . . . They do not bear arms, and do not know
them, for I showed them a sword; they took it by the edge and cut
themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of
cane . . . . They would make fine servants . . . With fifty men we could
subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. (p. 1)

Zinn sees this as evidence that from the very beginning Columbus was eager
to assess the exploitability of the native inhabitants.

Columbus began to gather information from the natives. He took some of the

natives by force for this purpose. The object of his investigation was very
focused: The information that Columbus wanted most was: Where is the
gold? (p. 1). Having this as his primary goal, Columbus had no compunction
about treating the Indians cruelly. All the Indians of San Salvador were
required to collect a certain amount of gold every three months. Those who
failed to do so had their hands cut off. When even these extreme methods
failed to squeeze enough gold out of the land, Columbus tried another
approach: When it became clear that there was no gold left, the Indians
were taken as slave labor on huge estates, known later as encomiendas. (p.
4). Zinn portrays Columbus as one who would go to any length to extract
wealth from the new-found land.

Zinn magnifies our sense of outrage by describing the innocence and nobility
of the natives who were so senselessly brutalized. He proves that the Indian
culture treated its women well, using the following quotation from a Spanish
priest who accompanied Columbus:

Marriage laws are non-existent: men and women alike choose their mates
and leave them as they please, without offense, jealousy or anger. They
multiply in great abundance; pregnant women work to the last minute and
give birth almost painlessly; up the next day, they bathe in the river and are
as clean and healthy as before giving birth. If they tire of their men, they give
themselves abortions with herbs that force stillbirths, covering their shameful
parts with leaves or cotton cloth; although on the whole, Indian men and
women look upon total nakedness with as much casualness as we look upon
a mans head or at his hands. (p. 5).

Zinn also notes the communal and non-capitalistic nature of Indian society:

They live in large communal bell-shaped buildings, housing up to 600

people at one time. . . . They lack all manner of commerce, neither buying
nor selling, and rely exclusively on their natural environment for
maintenance. They are extremely generous with their possessions and by the
same token covet the possessions of their friends and expect the same
degree of liberality. (p. 5)

From Zinns perspective, these qualities of Indian society made it superior to

European society; and yet the Europeans brutalized and, in some cases,
exterminated whole tribes in the name of Christianity, civilization, and
progress. Columbus was but the first of many such oppressors.

III. CAN WE LEARN FROM HISTORY?

Very briefly I have outlined two different stories of Columbus. You are
probably asking yourself, How can the accounts be so different? Didnt they
read the same evidence? I am certain they both read many of the same
sources. Two people can read the same document, however, and interpret it
very differently. One very obvious example of this is the way the two
historians handled Columbuss religious motivations. When Columbus talked
about his desire to evangelize the natives, Marshall took him very seriously;
Marshall can identify with such desires and is willing to take Columbus at face
value at this point. Zinn, on the other hand, does not take these same
statements at face value; he dismisses them by saying, He was full of
religious talk. . . (p. 3), implying that Columbus was not sincere. Although
Zinn seems to be skeptical that anyone could be sincerely religiously
motivated, he does not trust Columbus because, more importantly, Columbus
was a scoundrel. So, although both authors look at the same words penned
by Columbus, one believes him and the other does not. And neither can prove
that his judgment on this matter is correct. When the two historians look at
document after document through their different perspectives, the end result
is two entirely different pictures of Columbus.

I hope you can see from these two versions of Columbuss discovery of
America that history is much more subjective than we generally realize. Every
historian tells a different story, each one largely reflecting the historians own
world view. This raises the awkward question, Can we learn from history? If
every historian reads his own world view into the past, can the past ever
break through and speak to us?

The answer is yes. The past speaks in a voice audible to those who want to
hear and to listen attentively. Establishing what really happened at a given
point in history is much like establishing the guilt or innocence of an accused
criminal in a courtroom trial. Evidence is presented and witnesses testify.
Taken as a whole, the evidence is full of inconsistencies and inexplicable
gaps, and so a sorting process begins. Some witnesses are suspected of

being liars; their testimony is handled with suspicion. Some apparent

contradictions are found to be resolvable. The gaps are filled with plausible
conjecture. As this sorting process continues, a coherent picture begins to
emerge. That emerging picture, however, will be one of two very different
kinds. If in the course of this sorting procedure we have held tightly to our
preconceived notions, the final picture will be a reaffirmation of those
prejudices. If, however, we have been willing to jettison beliefs that did not
seem to have adequate factual support, we may have our initial suspicions
rejected.

Can we learn from history? The short answer is yesif we are willing to. But if
we do not sincerely seek to learn from the past, we will learn nothing. This is
true of professional historians as well as students.

CONCLUSION

History is important because it helps us to understand the present. If we will

listen to what history has to say, we can come to a sound understanding of
the past that will tell us much about the problems we now face. If we refuse
to listen to history, we will find ourselves fabricating a past that reinforces our
understanding of current problems.

People tend to underestimate the power of history. If I want to convince you

that capitalism is evil, I could simply tell you that capitalism is evil, but this is
likely to have little effect on the skeptical. This frontal attack is too crude. If,
however, I disinterestedly tell you the history of capitalism, nonchalantly
listing all the atrocities attributable to it, I am much more likely to achieve my
goal. I can leave a lasting impression that will evoke revulsion at the mere
mention of the word.

History teaches values. If it is true history, it teaches true values; if it is

pseudo-history, it teaches false values. The history taught to our children is
playing a role in shaping their values and beliefsa much greater role than
we may suspect.

NOTES:
(1) Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the United States (Harper, New York:
1980), 8. (Back to text)
(2) Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and Glory: Did God have a
plan for America? (Power Books, Old Tappan: 1977). (Back to text)
(3) Samuel Eliot Morison, Christopher Columbus, Mariner (Little and Brown:
Boston, 1942). (Back to text)

Copyright November 1993 by McKenzie Study Center, an institute of

Gutenberg College.
David Crabtree

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