It is no longer news that the history of the European past and its role in shaping American cultural life is under severe attack. In virtually every university that offers a liberal arts curriculum, in every arts institution that deals with the European classics, and in the offices of every publication that engages in intellectual pursuits, the discussion of the past has become, in effect, the principal battleground for mapping out the future of our culture.

The very concept of a liberal arts education is, of course, an invention of the European past, and traditionally our concert halls, our opera houses, our art museums, and our universities have understood themselves to be the intellectual custodians of that past. Yet in the face of a concerted assault from radical multiculturalists, on the one hand, and left-wing historical revisionists, on the other, the traditional priority given to the European past in American cul ...

This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchase