Friday Cat Blog

While the Power Liberal’s cats amuse themselves with liberal antics like Playing Bachmann and digesting the indigestible, for the record, my cat purr-furs more conservative purr-suts.

You can help feed Basil and expand your perspective on American history by ordering “A Patriot's History of the United States : From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror” from amazon.com. Click Here.

By way of review, "A Patriot’s History" is billed as a “conservative” or “traditional” view of American history. The overriding theme, and for me most enjoyable part of the book, is that even when discussing American missteps, the authors never lose cite of the nobility of American purpose and the inherent goodness and desire of the American people to what is right.

That said, and that alone makes the book an excellent addition to anyone’s bookshelf (especially if you have kids in school), in terms of tone, the book is sharply divided.

From Columbus to the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt the emphasis is on the events of history. The authors provide seldom-noted facts and events that create a lost (yes, conservative) interpretation of history. Occasionally the bias is a little overstated, like calling Jefferson’s war with the Barbary pirates “American’s first pre-emptive war,” but the overall effort is a provocative view of history, that as noted, makes one proud to be an American.

From Roosevelt on, however, the tone takes a decided turn. There’s still plenty of great information that is never mentioned in politically correct history classes, but the conservative perspective that enriched the first half of the book degenerates into a liberal-bashing mode that becomes distracting.

Whereas the first half of the book is a conceptualization of history from a conservative perspective, the latter half of the book is a reactionary retrospective of liberalism. That has its value, and may in fact be necessary given that more recent history is fresh and carries a much stronger liberal slant than “traditional” American history.

The second half of the book is more entertaining -- as in Hannity and Colmes -- compared to the intellectual appealing first half -- CSPAN Washington Journal, but like the comparison, it is less saisfying. As liberal historians mudslinging at the founders gives a false negative picture of America, the authors' overtly ripping, albeit liberal, American icons beyond justification by the facts, also damages the country's image in the eyes of the reader.

Nonetheless, "A Patriot's History" is a good read and a great review of basic American history. Help keep my cat off welfare. Click Here.