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- Harry Mount, the London Telegraph
FeaturesJune 1998 The problem of democratic history On History on Trial: Culture Wars & the Teaching of History by Gary B. Nash, Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross E. Dunn & the debate over history curricula
Historians who write in aristocratic ages are inclined to refer all
occurrences to the particular will and character of certain individuals;
and they are apt to attribute the most important revolutions to slight
accidents. They trace out the smallest causes with sagacity, and
frequently leave the greatest unperceived.
Historians who live in democratic ages exhibit precisely opposite
characteristics. Most of them attribute hardly any influence to the
individual over the destiny of the race, or to citizens over the fate of
a people; but, on the other hand, they assign great general causes to
all petty incidents.
—Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America In the late 1980s and early 1990s, conservative governments in both the United States and the United Kingdom invested heavily in programs to redefine the study of history and to redraft the curricula for teach ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 16 June 1998, on page 22 Copyright © 2012 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/democratichistory-windschuttle-3027
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