Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As historian Thomas E. Woods, Jr., notes on page 78 of this important new book, "the modern state trains its citizens to think" in a certain way. Whether the issue is the role of the State in regulating the economy ... how racial minorities can succeed ... or how we should judge success or failure in a politician, a narrow range of opinions has been deemed acceptable by Establishment Left and Establishment Right. Questions that could lead to different conclusions are ones "we're not supposed to ask." Tom Woods is out to change that. Picking up where he left off in "The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History," the author again plays Manolete to the Establishment's sacred cows. But he's after more, I think, than just a tasty barbecue. Some of the questions here are ones people are actively discouraged from answering the "wrong" way -- questions about the causes of the Civil War, the influence of unions, the effectiveness of desegregation as a tool for improving education, or the validity of PC mythology about native Americans. Other questions confront conventional wisdom so solidly entrenched that the questions don't occur to most people in the first place: what if the Depression wasn't a failure of capitalism, and what if the New Deal didn't save us? But the most interesting questions, I think, are the ones you have to look deeply into American history even to discover the context of the questions, so thoroughly have they been buried under official neglect: Why does the Whiskey Rebellion matter; what does the "elastic clause" really mean; or what if the presidency wasn't meant to be what it is today? At first, I found parts of this book problematic: the chapters are long enough to intrigue (or outrage), but often not long enough to convince beyond the traditional "reasonable doubt." At a few points, the author stopped just short of diving into some Hoppean or Spoonerian analysis of constitutional issues. And yet, entire books have been written on most of these questions -- many of which Woods cites in his text and endnotes. I suspect the author's deeper goal (beyond the above-mentioned barbecue) is less to provide the answers than to urge readers to begin pondering the questions. If rescuing the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions or the true meaning of "states' rights" from the Memory Hole are "essential to a proper understanding of American history" (p. 157), intellectually honest people should be able to work out the implications. Another objection I can see is the so-called "realist" argument that whether or not we ask these questions, the expansion of federal power is a fait accompli --- one the American people by and large seem content with. (The author himself gives us political science in one lesson on page 202: "Enforcing federal supremacy always comes first.") Given that "we" seem to want Social Security, OSHA, and a "national drug control policy," what does it matter what James Madison intended by the commerce clause two centuries ago? But if Woods' presentation of American history is true, then it *matters* that it is true: ideas, after all, "have consequences," and as Father Abraham might have put it, a house built on lies cannot stand. Ask yourself: if the facts presented here are true, would it change how you think about government, politics ... and America itself? And if so, then what?