A Quote by David McCullough
We are raising a generation of young Americans who are, to a very large degree, historically illiterate. It's not their faults. There's no problem about enlisting their interest in history. None. The problem is the teachers so often have no history in their background.
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Yes, college tuition is a problem for many young Americans, but it is a problem exacerbated by government subsidies and an overwhelming demand to get a college degree, despite high dropout rates.
That's why history is not an answer to our problem, because history complicates, enlarges every problem of human existence. Now, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries didn't believe this.
The steep ride up the and down the energy curve is the most abnormal thing that has ever happened in human history. Most of human history is a no-growth situation. Our culture is built on growth and that phase of human history is almost over and we are not prepared for it. Our biggest problem is not the end of our resources. That will be gradual. Our biggest problem is a cultural problem. We don't know how to cope with it.
One of the things people often say about America is that it's a such a young country, relatively, and its problem - Europeans say this - is that they have no memory. I don't agree with this. In the Balkans, the problem is that we cannot forget. The problem is we have great memory.
Through American history, we have had populist movements that often, often, often have this ugly racial element. But, often, there are warning signs of some deeper social and economic problem.
You can't solve a problem? Well, get down and investigate the present facts and [the problem's] past history! When you have investigated the problem thoroughly, you will know how to solve it.
There has always been interest in certain phases and aspects of history - military history is a perennial bestseller, the Civil War, that sort of thing. But I think that there is a lot of interest in historical biography and what's generally called narrative history: history as story-telling.
As a community organizer who holds a degree in history, I understand the fascination with history. However, there is a tendency for many of us to get engrossed in the recounting of our history, which often amounts to purely intellectual activity without material action.
The problem is that my generation was pacified into believing that racism existed only in our history books.
When I'm not governing my country any more, I'll go back to taking care of children. Or else I'll start studying anthropology - it's a science that's always interested me very much, also in relation to the problem of poverty. Or else I'll go back to studying history - at Oxford I took my degree in history. Or else...I don't know, I'm fascinated by the tribal communities. I might busy myself with them.
When I went to high school - that's about as far as I got - reading my U.S. history textbook, well, I got the history of the ruling class. I got the history of the generals and the industrialists and the presidents that didn't get caught. How 'bout you? I got all of the history of the people who owned the wealth of the country, but none of the history of the people that created it.
I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
The problem is poverty. And it hides the problem. We often associate black churches with a history of protest. But prosperity gospel and megachurches tend to be rather soft on political issues. T.D. Jakes doesn't take a major stand on political issues. Creflo Dollar certainly doesn't.
History causes the military problem to become the essence of the political problem.
Sometimes in the history of art it is possible to describe a period or a generation of artists as having been obsessed by a particular problem.
I'm not against knowing the history of white people in the U.S. - that's not the point. The point is that there's so much greater history. We don't know about Native Americans. Very basically, we don't know that much about African American history, except that they were enslaved. You only get bits and pieces.
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