When the French philosopher Jean-François Revel died on April 30, the world lost an important voice for political and intellectual sanity. Revel’s books Without Marx or Jesus and How Democracies Perish are modern classics, as is The Totalitarian Temptation, whose title epitomizes one of the most virulent moral pathologies of our time.

In his book Anti-Americanism (a chapter of which appeared in our October 2003 issue), Revel noted that “culture becomes decadent when it takes to running down other cultures while heaping praises on itself.” We thought of that observation when we read in the London Times about Histoire/Geschichte, a new history textbook commissioned in 2003 by Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder. The book, which will be on the official curriculum in France and Germany beginning in September, was designed to give students “a common vision of post-war history.” But guess what? That “common vision” is systematically anti-American. Surprised? The Times quotes Guillaume Le Quintrec, the leader of the French team of historians, who described Histoire/Geschichte as “unashamedly pro-European ideology” underwritten by distrust and resentment of the United States. The book, which opens in 1945, presents the Cold War as a rivalry between morally equivalent states bent on pursuing an arms race in order to maintain a “balance of terror.” Both the United States and the Soviet Union, the book assures readers, sought to “impose themselves by an omnipresent propaganda” involving “gross exaggerations and simplifications.”

Speaking of “gross exaggerations and simplifications,” Histoire/Geschichte presents the E.U. as an impressive and deeply humanitarian success story: “Through its willingness to co-operate with the Third World, its attachment to multilateralism, its dialogue with other regions, the E.U. appears as a model on the international scene.” Ah yes, “multilateralism”: that would be in contrast to the naughty “unilateralism” “enshrined by George W. Bush” which—horrors!— “is widely criticised throughout the world.” Histoire/Geschichte is an exercise in revisionist propaganda, not history. It might have been worse, though. According to M. Le Quintrec, the German historians involved in the project lobbied to keep the French from insinuating an even harsher note of anti-Americanism. “They got us to tone it down,” he said. We suppose that comes under the rubric of “thank God for small mercies.”

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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 24 Number 10, on page 1
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https://newcriterion.com/issues/2006/6/history-lessons-2441

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