conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a description for a book titled History as Mystery about Democracy, That's, Historians with the genre: New, Used & Rental Textbooks, Humanities.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: the author (Democracy for the Few, etc.) argues that history is written by the victors, and he doesn't like it one bit. That's mostly because, as a progressive, his sympathies lie largely with history's losers. Historians, the author insists, have promoted gross miseducation across the board, abandoning "what really happened" in favor of a "pro-business, anti-labor" view of history. In his effort to "set things right," he turns, first, to the writings of historical textbooks, blaming "the powers that be"Ahistorians, publicists, publishers, Publishers Weekly, the culture at largeAfor sustaining a "mainstream orthodoxy." the author then turns to Christianity's suppression of paganism, seen microscopically in Constantine's silencing of Porphyry, to conclude that, as with all hegemonies, Christian teaching and preaching is really just an "ideological justification for the worldly interests of a ruthless slaveholding class." The problem is that the author is a much better complainer than he is an explainer. He's at his best when he localizes his argument in a chapter that takes on the "strange death" of President Zachary Taylor. Only there is the mysterious process by which speculation transforms into official record given ample analysis. the author wants a people's history, not just another account of the "gentrification of history." Yet the actual story here is slanted, jumbledAtailored to fit the author's all-too-familiar contentions, illustrated at times with bullet points. (Sept.) <BR>Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first two paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: History as Mystery
  In the United States, before World War II, the accepted patrician norms of the university "often debarred from academic life people whose ethnic or racial background was different from that of the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant ascendancy"32: Jews, Catholics, African Americans, Latinos, and Asians. In the post–World War II era, the growth in enrollments and in federal and state funding for higher education brought a greater diversity in ethnicity, class background, and—to a lesser degree—political orientation among academic historians. The conservative Anglo-patrician grip on the profession was loosened though not broken. And with the loosening came an improvement in the quality of historiography, with at least some scholarship directed toward understanding the historical realities of class power and exploitation.33
  What was wrong with having historians who were drawn from "a lower social stratum"? Addressing the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in 1962, President Carl Bridenbaugh, himself a product of Protestant Middle America, vented his ethno-class concerns in regard to this "great mutation" (his term). Aware that the postwar G.I. Bill ushered in all sorts of people who could not have gone to college in earlier times, Bridenbaugh lamented, "Many of the young practitioners of our craft, and those who are still apprentices, are products of lower middle-class or foreign origins, and their emotions not infrequently get in the way of historical reconstructions." Urban-bred and influenced by the Old World attitudes of their parents, they suffered from "environmental deficiency." Through no fault of their own, they lacked the understanding "vouchsafed to historians who were raised in the countryside or in the small town."35
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me another paragraph.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The two old rivals, Clay and Webster, joined forces with Clay's friend and admirer, the newly installed President Fillmore, who put the power of his office, including its ample patronage resources, behind the compromise package.81 Within a month after Taylor's death, many of the issues that fervently concerned the slaveholders were settled to their satisfaction. The Texas boundary was set at expanded limits of 33,000 square miles above even what Clay had proposed. California was made a state but New Mexico remained a territory. The interstate slave trade continued without federal interference, and a strong fugitive slave bill was passed. Fillmore's vigorous enforcement produced "an era of slave hunting and kidnapping."82 People who harbored runaways, and even persons who had knowledge of such activity but failed to report it, now risked fine and imprisonment.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last four paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Michael Parenti is considered one of the nation's leading progressive thinkers. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University in 1962, and has taught at a number of colleges and universities. His writings have been featured in scholarly journals, popular periodicals, and newspapers, and have been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, German, Turkish, and Bangla.
  Dr. Parenti lectures around the country on college campuses and before religious, labor, community, peace, and public interest groups. He has appeared on radio and television talk shows to discuss current issues or ideas from his published works. Tapes of his talks have played on numerous radio stations to enthusiastic audiences. Audio and video tapes of his talks are sold on a not-for-profit basis; for a listing, contact People's Video, P.O. Box 99514, Seattle WA 98100; tel. 206-789-5371. Dr. Parenti lives in Berkeley, California. You can visit his web site: <http://www.vida.com/parenti>.
  Blake, N., Rinder, L., & A. Scholder, eds. IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT: Visual Culture, Sexual Culture, Queer Practice
  Brook, James, Chris Carlsson, Nancy J. Peters eds. RECLAIMING SAN FRANCISCO: History Politics Culture
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Michael Parenti is considered one of the nation's leading progressive thinkers. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University in 1962, and has taught at a number of colleges and universities. His writings have been featured in scholarly journals, popular periodicals, and newspapers, and have been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, German, Turkish, and Bangla.
  Dr. Parenti lectures around the country on college campuses and before religious, labor, community, peace, and public interest groups. He has appeared on radio and television talk shows to discuss current issues or ideas from his published works. Tapes of his talks have played on numerous radio stations to enthusiastic audiences. Audio and video tapes of his talks are sold on a not-for-profit basis; for a listing, contact People's Video, P.O. Box 99514, Seattle WA 98100; tel. 206-789-5371. Dr. Parenti lives in Berkeley, California. You can visit his web site: <http://www.vida.com/parenti>.
  Blake, N., Rinder, L., & A. Scholder, eds. IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT: Visual Culture, Sexual Culture, Queer Practice
  Brook, James, Chris Carlsson, Nancy J. Peters eds.