Twenty-eight essays by as many professional historians, compiled by the Society of American Historians. This is one of the organizations under systematic attack by the plutocrats who organized the current "mother of all battles" against OUR Government. [Brother Koch repeatedly invokes his martial intent. I heard the latest salvo directed against us in the 2012 Election cycle.]

This book has many of my favorites vignettes. The Introduction by Allan Nevins notes that "written history has changed the destiny of nations", and "without it there can be neither true liberty nor true patriotism".

Certain "points" are made which revisionists are eroding.

First, in one small book, we have vital dramatic stories which are documented and to a very large extent "true". Yet public schools are no longer "teaching" History as a many-sided open narrative.

1. Byzantium. Do HS graduates even know what it is and its relation to Rome? The mere sight of the City convinced 10th century Russians to convert to "Orthodox" Christianity [10]. It was plundered and seized by Islamicist Turks in 1453, just before the New World discoveries. Thereafter, Crusaders also savagely plundered the people. Islamic attacks not only triggered the Crusades of liberation, but they also motivated John Smith to found the Virginia colony. Hmmm? Byron and Rebecca West have written stirringly of the region, and Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium" remains an unsurpassed invocation to both youth and age.

2. Crusades. The US was attacked on September 11, 2001, by Saudi Arabian terrorists who were still reeling from the "humiliation" of the repeated Islamic defeats Allah's armies suffered in Spain and Eastern Europe on the way to their conquest of the world. Can this be put any other way? More gently? Really?

Professor Runciman provides an inside look at "The People's Crusade", led by Peter the Hermit. There is just no question that at least some of the people still believed, back then, in God, and Allah, and in thorough pillaging and sacking of the richest places on the planet, while selling the survivors into slavery. No religions--churches or mosques--can stand up to the facts of betrayal, treachery, sadism, and greed manifest by the saints on the multiply-fracking sides of this conflict.

Maybe this is why the Saudi's print school books filled with fictions instead of history. Maybe this is why the Koch brothers and Murdocks get "tax benefits" for their contributions to over 200 "educational" charities that are dumbing down the students in the United States and Britain.

It just gets better. Here is the TOC:

1. Sailing to Byzantium" by Hlibert Highet.
2. The People's Crusade - Runciman.
3. Islam and the West - Toynbee.
4, Russia--East or West? - Pares.
5. Young Napoleon - Thompson.
6, Dinner at Four - Palmer. English table manners and rituals.
7. Prehistoric Man in Britain- J and C Hawkes,
8. Egypt and Mesopotamia - Jacobsen.
9. Rediscovery of Assyrian Empire - Ceram.
10. Puritans and Democracy - Miller.
11. Captured by American Indians - Lincoln.
12. Who Among us is Safe? - Mark and Schwaab. [immigrants],
13. Ms Lincoln shops for the White House - Randall.
14. Johnny Appleseed: An Ozark Folk Tale - Randolph
15. Small Town: Hannibal, Missouri - Wecter.
16. The White Collar takes over - Mills.
17, Santayana in Greece - Santayana.
18. The Greek Way - Hamilton.
19. The Japanese Way - Gibney.
20. The Origins of Modern Drama - Artz,
21. Charles Dickens: Social Reformer - Johnson
22. Central Park: 1859 diary of George Templeton Strong - Nevins
23. Peace in Our Time: The Makers of Munich - Namier.
24. The Downfall of Henry Wallace - Goldman
25. Nature of American Nationalism - Commager.
26. Joan of Arc as her enemies saw her - Lightbody.
27. The Artist and the Kings, isolationism - Flexner.
28. Retreat into Isolationism - Foster Rhea Dulles.

Each piece has a thoughtful precis. ( )