August 05, 2003

Thoughts on Worst Americans

John Hawkins' list sparked some spirited responses [and here]. Many of the complaints had to do with Bill and Hillary Clinton on it. Let's face it, in the big scheme of things, attempting to nationalize health care isn't as bad as actually nationalizing part of it (LBJ's Medicare and Medicade) or attempting to create a new country out of a part of the U.S. (Aaron Burr) or killing 189 people (Tim McVeigh).

But ranking the Clintons so highly isn't necessarily a sign to Right-wing wacko-ness. It's just an example of society's lack of historical knowledge. The public will get interested in cultural histories (Seabiscuit) and biographies (John Adams and Benjamin Franklin) but little else. Sure, Stephen Ambrose sold lots of books on World War II, but I'd argue that his efforts to get into the heads and hearts of the soldiers amounted to more cultural history than military. To show the lack of public desire for real historical depth, the Amazon bestseller list as Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything at number 10.