"i.e., that open-ended investigation of the nation's past could weaken
the ties of citizenship by raising critical issues about the
distribution of power and respect."

I invite your attention to: "The 500 Year Delta: What Happens After What 
Comes Next"; Watts Wacker, Jim Taylor, with Howard Means; 1997; Harper 
Business; ISBN 0-88730-838-4. Probably out of print; but, might be available 
through Inter-Library loan.

 "The four new freedoms: freedom to know; freedom to go; freedom to do; 
freedom to be (whatever one wants to be) ......"

"We look at the dissolution of corporate loyalty and see the collapse of 
national identity, the disempowering (sic) of governments, and we see not a 
world order in peril but rather the rise of a global freedom......"

"How can you connect in an age where strangers, lovers, landlords, your own 
cells betray?
Or bind the fabric together when the raging shifting winds of change keep 
ripping away?
Jonathan Larson, Rent"

For purposes of perspective: "All species are doomed to extinction - 
biological axiom. Man wasn't here in the beginning and he won't be here at 
the end." - Some one or other.

Regards, Ray



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Henry Wiencek" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 7:06 PM
Subject: Re: 03232232Z12 Re: Textbooks


>I was struck by Kevin's astute observation: "The older consensus,
> which viewed study of history as preparation for civic engagement in
> the present, collapsed in the 1970s (if not earlier) and has not been
> replaced by anything to which most concerned parties in the
> conversation can agree." Some of our very greatest scholars have
> raised this issue. Conservative and liberal historians alike shrink
> from what recent historical study has wrought.  In place of reliable
> verities, recent scholarship offers up uncertainties and
> contradictions that leave us "looking into the abyss," as Gertrude
> Himmelfarb writes. Gordon Wood writes that "the consequences of not
> being able to make distinctions between truth and falsehood can be
> terrifying." Directly addressing Kevin's point, Joyce Appleby writes
> that digging too deeply into our past "raises very fully the
> disturbing possibility that the study of history does not strengthen
> an attachment to one's country. Indeed, the reverse might be true,
> i.e., that open-ended investigation of the nation's past could weaken
> the ties of citizenship by raising critical issues about the
> distribution of power and respect."
>
> Henry Wiencek
>
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