The Memory Hole

The U.S. history curriculum is under attack. Politicians, political analysts, andideologues seek to wipe clean the slate of the American past and replace it withone of their own invention. The basis for this new narrative comes frompolitical beliefs of the present, rather than any systematic examination of thepast. These anti-historians campaign to insert their version of American historyinto the nation's classrooms, hoping to begin a process that will forevertransform our understanding of America's past.The Memory Hole examines five central topics in the US history curriculum,showing how anti-historians of both the left and right seek to distort these topicsand insert a refashioned story in America's classrooms. Ignoring facts, refashioning other facts and pretendingthat there are no rules in the telling of history, these re-interpreters of the past place the minds of America'syoung people in danger. The beleaguered hero of this book is the discipline of History, and The Memory Holeshows how the history curriculum should adhere to history's habits of mind that require complex, sophisticatedand subtle thinking about the past. History and social studies teachers, students of history and all those who careabout the deep and enduring value of history will value this book and its conclusions.