American public history--in magazines and books, television documentaries, and museums--tends to celebrate its subject at all costs, even to the point of denial and distortion. This does us a great disservice, argues William Hogeland in Inventing American History. Looking at details glossed over in three examples of public history--the Alexander Hamilton revival, tributes to Pete Seeger and William F. Buckley, and the Constitution Center in Philadelphia--Hogeland considers what we lose when history is written to conform to political aims. Questioning the resurrection, by both neocons and the left, of Alexander Hamilton as the founder of the American financial system--if not of the American dream itself--Hogeland delves deeply into Hamilton's brutal treatment of working-class entrepreneurs. And debunking recent hagiographies of Pete Seeger and William F. Buckley, Hogeland deftly parses Seeger's embrace of communism and Buckley's unreconstructed views on race. Hogeland then turns his attention to the U.S. Constitution Center in Philadelphia (the location of Barack Obama's speech on race), comparing its one-note celebration of the document to the National Park Service tours of nearby Independence Hall. The Park Service tours don't advance any particular point of view, but by being almost purely informative with a kind of hands-on detail, they make the past come to life, available for both celebration and criticism. We should be able to respect the Constitution without being forced to our knees before it, Hogeland argues; we can handle the truth about the Framers' intense politicking and compromises.. Only when we can ground our public history in the gritty events of the day, embracing its contradictions and difficulties, will we be able to learn from it.
Born in Virginia and raised in Brooklyn, New York, William Hogeland is the author of three books on founding U.S. history: "The Whiskey Rebellion," "Declaration," and "Founding Finance," as well as a collection of essays, "Inventing American History." His work in history represents an unusual blend of critical interpretation and dramatic narrative. He has also written about history, music, and politics for "The Atlantic Monthly," "AlterNet," "Salon," "The New York Times," "Boston Review," and "The Huffington Post." His essay "American Dreamers" appears in Da Capo's "Best Music Writing 2009," edited by Greil Marcus. Hogeland also contributed the chapter on insurrections to "A Blackwell Companion to American Military History."
Hogeland's blog is at http://www.williamhogeland.com. He has an online self-publishing venture at http://www.hogelandpublishing.com. He posts at http://twitter/WilliamHogeland, and his Facebook author page is http://www.facebook.com/pages/William-Hogeland/108281879206433.
