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I'm immediately turned off by "rewriting American History with the 1619 project." It looks like the author is taking well-known, well-covered historical embarr

• sneak 5y ago
  I was turned off by that too, but I'm actually the kind of person who makes a point of reading things written by intelligent people with whom I ideologically diverge. I also acknowledge that I lack the authoritative knowledge of history to evaluate whether assertion that the 1619 project is rewriting history is true or not. I rather like the 1619 project and its narratives, so perhaps I'll add some books to my list for the coming year to be able to call bullshit on that or not. In general my promotion of things that increase skepticism in statements made by authority (such as the NYT) outweighs my disdain for the brawlers in the current US culture war.
  • etchalon 5y ago
    Weirdly, I tend to only read things which challenge my thinking, and avoid things which confirm it, so I haven't read the 1619 project itself, only the commentary around it. I understand the behavior makes no logical sense but … it's just the way I am. What I've found is that there is no disagreement over the facts presented, only interpretations of those facts. I've searched, in vain, for reputable historians challenging specific factual claims made by the project. I haven't read one. The largest, credible criticisms are more or less either a tone argument ("Slavery was A motivation of SOME") or alternate fact discussions, some of which are interesting but none of which I'd count as discrediting anything. The rest of what I've read is mostly Founding Father Worship which I have zero time for.