American History Negative Critique Essay Term Paper Recall the video assignment on The Story of Ireland, when Fergal Keane visits a teacher from his schoo

American History Negative Critique Essay Term Paper

Recall the video assignment on The Story of Ireland, when Fergal Keane visits a teacher from his schooldays, who mentions an assignment he had given his students. Carson: Irish patriot, was the topic given to these students who were from southern, not northern, Ireland. They had grown up being taught to think that to be Irish, one had to be Gaelic and Catholic, and here was their teacher asking them to identify with someone who was Protestant and who many undoubtedly saw as the enemy. Keane’s point was that Carson did what he thought was best for Ireland as did those who sought independence in the South. Go back and review the video if you like. Keane’s visit with his teacher is just before the five minute mark in episode one. You are being asked to do something similar. You are being asked to think and write from a perspective that you may not feel comfortable with.

According to critics, historical revisionism has distorted our nation’s past and divided the American people. Liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. uses Plato’s concept of a “noble lie” to describe the problem in academia today. Constructed by those on the extreme Left, it serves radical political interests (influenced by Marx and Nietzsche) and ignores a huge amount of evidence that would enable us to obtain a fairer and more balanced understanding of our nation.

Using at least ten of the required reading and supplemental sources available in Canvas (you must include at least one primary source; assignment sources are also acceptable), in addition to Bloom and class lectures, discuss how our nation’s history has become a noble, even an ignoble, lie. Write a brief paragraph about each one of the sources. In order to earn the grade, you must describe the ignoble lie and how the prevailing radical narrative of U.S. history is one-sided and has been constructed through the biased selection, distortion, and omission of facts. The student explains the ignoble lie that each source addresses and explains how each source contributes to refuting it. Facts from the lecture notes are used to support the sources. Think of your paper this way: It should be a critique of the negative critique of American history.

Try to cover a range of issues and consider questions such as: What aspect of the ignoble lie that denigrates and vilifies Western Civilization and American history does this source address? Which aspects of our telling of history have been contrived for therapeutic purposes or politically useful purposes? How has the truth been distorted? How have problems been exaggerated? What lies have been formulated to add support to claims of oppression? Has the self-criticism of the European been met with self-criticism from other groups? Was slavery really benign in Africa, and if not, then why do textbooks present it as such? Have women really been treated like slaves throughout history or have they not been fairly well treated and protected and provided for? Do we really live in a rape culture, or is it a political tactic to keep alive a sense of crisis? Does violence really distinguish Western Civilization from the others? Was there really genocide of Indians? Are such claims insulting to Euro-Americans? How has the Counter-Enlightenment influenced the French Revolution, the rise of the Nazis, and the sixties radicals and contributed to the myth of the evil West? Is socialism really democracy? Which is the greater threat to democracy: the bourgeois or the anti-bourgeois? What have been the consequences of the lines of thought stemming from Locke and Rousseau? Also think about what was positive in our nation’s founding. How did the founding principles of our nation contribute to world civilization, to liberty, equality, material abundance, peace, and justice?

You have to use sources provided in Canvas. If you wish to extend your development of the topic beyond those sources, present them to me and tell me how you will use them. This is not an essay where you can just write about whatever you want. If you turn in anything like that, you will not receive any credit. If you write a paper solely for the purpose of resistance of opposition or to “get even,” you will be wasting your time and will not receive any points.

Add brief introductory and conclusion paragraphs. The number of pages doesn’t matter as much as how well you stick to the topic and show how the source counters some aspect of the revisionist account. Your paper should be double spaced and include endnotes (not footnotes) formatted as best as you can according to the Chicago Manual of Style or Turabian. Any paper that does not have citations will not be read. Please include a title page, but it doesn’t count as a written page. Page numbers bottom center should be provided. Spell-check and proof-read your paper before submitting it. Check for grammatical and spelling errors.

We are not dealing here just with opinions. We are concerned with the facts that are left out of our Marxist textbooks.

Recommended Reading

Education, Indoctrination, Victimology, and the Media

Bawer, Bruce. The Victims’ Revolution: The Rise of Identity Studies and the Closing of the Liberal Mind.

*Bernstein, Richard. Dictatorship of Virtue: How the Battle Over Multiculturalism Is Reshaping Our Schools, Our Country, and Our Lives. 1995.

*D’Souza, Dinesh. Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus. 1991.

Elder, Larry. *Ten Things You Can’t Say in America

Stupid Black Men: How to Play the Race Card—And Lose.

Goldberg, Jonah. Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Change. 2007.

Green, David. We’re (Nearly) All Victims Now!: How Political Correctness is Undermining Our Liberal Culture.

Ham, Mary Katharine, and Guy Benson. End of Discussion: How the Left’s Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun). 2015.

Limbaugh, David. Persecution: How Liberals are Waging War Against Christianity.

Lukianoff, Greg. Freedom From Speech.

Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate.

Kimball, Roger. Tenured Radicals: How Politics has Corrupted our Higher Education. 1990.

Kors, Alan Charles, and Harvey A. Silverglate. The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses.1998.

Maranto, Robert, and others. The Politically Correct University: Problems, Scope, and Reforms.

*Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society, Revised and Enlarged Edition, 1998. (First published in 1991.)

Scruton, Roger. Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left. 2015.

Shapiro, Ben. Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth. 2010.

Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans.

Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV.

Siegel, Fred. The Revolt Against the Masses: How Liberalism has Undermined the Middle Class.

Sykes, Charles J. The Hollow Men: Politics and Corruption in Higher Education. 1990.

*Dumbing Down our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves but Can’t Read, Write, or Add, 1995.

A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character.

Walsh, Michael. The Devil’s Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West. 2015.

*Windschuttle, Keith. The Killing of History: How Literary Critics and Social Theorists are Murdering Our Past. 1996.

Feminism and Gender

Baumeister, Roy F. Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men.

Farrell, Warren. The Myth of Male Power.

Patai, Daphne. Heterophobia: Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism.

What Price Utopia?: Essays on Ideological Policing, Feminism, and Academic Affairs.

Patai, Daphne, and Noretta Koertge. Professing Feminism.

Pavlich, Katie. The Truth About the Left and Their War on Women.

Smith, Helen. Men on Strike: Why Men are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream—and Why it Matters.

Sommers, Christian Hoff. Who Stole Feminism?: How Women have Betrayed Women.

Sommers, Christian Hoff, and Sally Satel. One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture is Eroding Self-Reliance.

Van Creveld, Martin. The Privileged Sex.

Venker, Suzanne, and Phyllis Schlafly. The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know—And Men Can’t Say.

Vilar, Esther. The Manipulated Man.

Slavery

Baepler, Paul. White Slaves, African Masters: An Anthology of American Barbary Captivity Narratives.

Davis, Robert C. Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800.

Ekin, Des. The Stolen Village: A Thrilling Account of the 17th-Century Raid on Ireland by the Barbary Pirates.

Finnemore, John. The Barbary Rovers: The Full Shocking Story of the Muslim North African Trade in White Slaves, 1500-1831.

King, Dean. Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival.

*Milton, Giles. White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa’s One Million European Slaves.

Schafer, Daniel L. Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley: African Princess, Florida Slave, Plantation Owner.

Brooks, Francis. Barbarian Cruelty: An Eye-Witness Account of White Slavery under the Moors.

Afrocentrism

Howe, Stephen. Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined Homes.

Lefkowitz, Mary. Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History.

Lefkowitz, Mary, and Guy MacLean Rogers. Black Athena Revisited.

Walker, Clarence E. We Can’t Go Home Again: An Argument About Afrocentrism.

Race and Ethnicity

Chavez, Linda. An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal (Or How I Became the Most Hated Hispanic in America).

Coulter, Ann. Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama.

Flaherty, Colin. ‘Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry’: The Hoax of Black Victimization and How We Enable It.

Horowitz, David. Progressive Racism.

Horowitz, David, and John Perazzo. Black Skin Privilege and the American Dream.

Martinelli, Ron. The Truth Behind the Black Lives Matter Movement and the War on Police.

McGlowan, Angela. Bamboozled: How Americas are being Exploited by the Lies of the Liberal Agenda.

Moss, Kirby. The Color of Class: Poor Whites and the Paradox of Privilege.

Perazzo, John. The Myths that Divide Us: How Lies Have Poisoned American Race Relations.

Riley, Jason L. Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make it Harder for Blacks to Succeed.

Sowell, Thomas. Black Rednecks and White Liberals, or other books by this author.

Steele, Shelby. The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America.

White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era.

Stein, Harry. No Matter What…They’ll Call This Book Racist: How our Fear of Talking Honestly about Race Hurts us All.

Williams, Walter E. Race and Economics: How Much can be Blamed on Discrimination?

Wright, Crystal. Con Job: How Democrats Gave us Crime, Sanctuary Cities, Abortion Profiteering, and Racial Division.

History and Social Commentary

Brooks, Arthur C. Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism—America’s Charity Divide—Who Gives, Who Doesn’t, and Why it Matters.

Coulter, Ann. Godless: The Church of Liberalism.

Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America.

Dalrymple, Theodore. In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas.

The New Vichy Syndrome: Why European Intellectuals Surrender to Barbarism.

Life at the Bottom: The Worldview that Makes the Underclass. Dalrymple’s key insight in Life at the Bottom is that long-term poverty is caused not by economics but by a dysfunctional set of values, one that is continually reinforced by an elite culture searching for victims. This culture persuades those at the bottom that they have no responsibility for their actions and are not the molders of their own lives.

Davis, Mark. Upside Down: How the Left Turned Right into Wrong, Truth into Lies, and Good into Bad.

DiLorenzo, Thomas. How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold History of Our Country, From the Pilgrims to the Present.

The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War.

Ferguson, Niall. The West and the Rest

Fernandez-Morera, Dario. The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain.

Folsom, Burton W., and Forrest McDonald. The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America.

Holmes, Kim R. The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left.

Holt, Michael F. The Fate of Their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War.

Kennedy, James Ronald, and Walter Donald Kennedy. The South Was Right!

MacDonald, Heather. The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe.

Magnuson, Roger J. Are Gay Rights Right? Making Sense of the Controversy.

Malkin, Michelle. Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild.

Powers, Kirsten. The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech.

Sanandaji, Nima. Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism.

Stark, Rodney. How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity.

Strassel, Kimberly. The Intimidation Game: How the Left is Silencing Free Speech.

Weaver, Richard M. Ideas Have Consequences.

Washington, Ellis. The Progressive Revolution: Liberal Fascism Through the Ages. Volumes 1&2.

West, Diana. American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character.

West, Thomas G. Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America.

Politically Incorrect Guides: Just about any of them.