The New Old Glory

By James Loewen

This article appeared in the May 20, 2002 edition of The Nation.

May 2, 2002

Lynne Cheney sees the world in black and white. Or, rather, in red, white and blue. Or at least she would have young Americans see it that way. She begins this forty-page children's book with a textbook example of ethnocentrism:

I wrote this book because I want my grandchildren to understand how blessed we are. I want them to know they are part of a nation whose citizens enjoy liberty and opportunity such as have never been known before.

Of course, Lynne Cheney has not seriously contemplated the levels of "liberty and opportunity" in, say, the Netherlands or Canada today, or Choctaw society in 1600. She doesn't mean her declaration as a serious statement of comparative history--it's just nationalist cheerleading.

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About James Loewen

James Loewen (jloewen@zoo.uvm.edu) is the author of Lies My Teacher Told Me and Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong (both Touchstone), which have sold half a million copies between them. He is now researching sundown towns--all-white towns that are all white on purpose. more...
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