Founding Myths by Ray Raphael Read Free Book Online Page B

consequently leads the pack more often rather thanless so. Only a handful of upper-level texts treat him as more than a caricature “firebrand.”
    I also conjectured that the scholarly community’s focus on the “Atlantic World” during Colonial and Revolutionary times would raise awareness of Britain’s global perspective following the defeat at Yorktown. Just a short passage could summarize Britain’s options at the time: with the empire threatened on many fronts, a strategic retreat from America appeared the best way to preserve what was left. Very few texts follow this route, however (see chapter 13 ). On one level, this can be explained by the continued demand for tidy endings; a major battlefield loss seems a natural conclusion to a war. But that goes only so far. Yorktown was indeed a pivotal event, but why did this particular defeat lead to an end of the war while the surrender at Saratoga, of similar proportions, did not? The answer to that question would require some attention to Britain’s global situation—yet to feature the global context would take America out of the driver’s seat, so the question is not asked. Keeping the United States in command of its destiny is an intrinsic component of the traditional narrative. We must remain the protagonists of our own story.
    SAME AS IT EVER WAS: IMPEDIMENTS TO CHANGE
    Constituent pressure is the surest path to a reconsideration of mythologies, but who , exactly, would want to nudge our heroes, heroines, and iconic events aside—and why? In the words of a critic who objected to my deconstruction of the Molly Pitcher tale: “Myth or not, it’s still a nice story which does no harm to anyone. Why not just let it alone?” Here is the default rationale for orthodoxy. Traditional stories are, in fact, our tradition. Having invested in them for all these years, we don’t want them to change. Familiar and comfortable stories have always held sway, yet today the forces of inertia are buttressed by the realities of twenty-first-century media and the move toward uniform standards in education.
    Textbooks and tests. Elementary, middle-school, and secondary texts thrive on tradition. Because these texts require approval by public bodies, publishers must satisfy a broad cross section of citizens, including many who cling fast to the stories they already know. Authors are selected more for their writing talents than for their familiarity with the latest historical research, and editors and publishers have their say as well. Textbook professionals, not people with expertise in the field, typically design timelines and review questions. Such aids are geared to standardized tests, and standard, in history, translates to traditional. For more than a decade we have witnessed a national crusade for excellence in education, but so-called “excellence” is based on historical narratives all Americans should presumably know. Testing reflects this:
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  •     “Who exhorted the Boston crowd?” Better say Sam Adams, not Ebenezer MacIntosh, Thomas Young, or William Molineux, actual street leaders at the time.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  •     “Who wrote the ‘Give me liberty, or give me death’ speech?” William Wirt will not be listed as a multiple-choice option, so you might as well go with Patrick Henry, even if you suspect otherwise.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  •     “Where and when did the Revolution start?” Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775—no matter that Massachusetts patriots had already overthrown British rule the previous year.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  •     “What was the coldest, hardest winter of the Revolutionary War?” If you choose Morristown in 1779–1780 you will be marked wrong, although of course you are correct.
    Some authors and editors might question the