Books like Past imperfect by Peter Charles Hoffer
"Woodrow Wilson, like many men of his generation, wanted to impose a version of America's founding identity: it was a land of the free and a home of the brave. But not the braves. Or the slaves. Or the disenfranchised women. So the history of Wilson's generation omitted a significant proportion of the population in favor of a perspective that was predominantly white, male, and Protestant." "That flaw would become a fissure and eventually a schism. A new history arose which, written in part by radicals and liberals, had little use for the noble and the heroic, and rankled many who wanted a celebratory rather than a critical history. To this combustible mixture of elements was added the flame of public debate. History in the 1990s was a minefield of competing passions, political views, and prejudices. It was dangerous ground, and, at the end of the decade, four of the nation's most respected and popular historians were almost destroyed on it: Michael Bellesiles, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Stephen Ambrose, and Joseph Ellis." "This is their story, set against the wider narrative of America's history. It may be, as Flaubert put it, that "Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times." To which he could have added: falsify, plagiarize, and politicize, because that's the other story of America's history."--BOOK JACKET.
First publish date: 2004
Authors: Peter Charles Hoffer
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Books similar to Past imperfect (6 similar books)
David McCullough’s *1776* chronicles the human drama surrounding the American Revolution’s pivotal year, tracing ordinary soldiers, notable leaders, and British forces as they shape the fate of the fledgling nation.
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Stephen E. Ambrose looks back over his career as a historian, sharing tales of the Americans he most admired—and a few he found contentious.
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Raphael explains the central purpose of his "people's history" thusly: "By uncovering the stories of farmers, artisans, and laborers, we discern how plain folk helped create a revolution strong enough to evict the British Empire from the thirteen colonies. And by digging deeper still, we learn how people with no political standing -- women, Native Americans, African Americans -- altered the shape of a war conceived by others." After carefully reconstructing the histories of all these groups, he concludes: "The story of our nation's founding, told so often from the perspective of the 'founding fathers,' will never ring true unless it can take some account of the Massachusetts farmers who closed the courts, the poor men and boys who fought the battles, the women who followed the troops, the loyalists who viewed themselves as rebels, the pacifists who refused to sign oaths of allegiance, the Native Americans who struggled for their own independence, the southern slaves who fled to the British, the northern slaves who negotiated their freedom by joining the Continental Army". Raphael's account rings true: these people made the American Revolution. - Marcus Rediker, University of Pittsburgh.
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There is no denying the tremendous power movies have in shaping our perceptions of the past. From Julius Caesar to Joan of Arc to Gandhi, many of history's greatest figures have become inextricably bound to their screen images.
It may not be the job of filmmakers to ensure the historical accuracy of these films, especially when deviation serves a compelling dramatic purpose. But wouldn't it be useful - and fascinating - to learn what has been changed, and for what reason? In Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies, sixty of the world's most lauded historical writers look beneath the celluloid surface of popular movies to examine the relationship between film and the historical record.
Beginning with a probing conversation between historian Eric Foner and director John Sayles (Eight Men Out, Matewan), Past Imperfect surveys nearly one hundred classic films, including Spartacus, Gone with the Wind, The Grapes of Wrath, and Malcolm X. Best-selling authors such as Gore Vidal, James M.
McPherson, Antonia Fraser, William Manchester, and Simon Schama skewer, praise, pick apart, and otherwise illuminate these cinematic portrayals of history, telling us as much about what the filmmakers got right as about where they went wrong.
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Some Other Similar Books
Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence by Joseph J. EllisThe Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 by Robert Middlekauff
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis
The American Revolution: A History by Alan Taylor
The American Revolution: A History in Documents by Steven Quataert
Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World by Maya Jasanoff
The War that Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War by Fred Anderson
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