Do I really have to talk about 1619 yet again? Yes, because it’s intensely political. It’s a salvo into the culture wars that we will have to deal with for years to come.
The review is written by Adam Hochschild, who apparently is a historian of some repute. In an effort to built credibility with people like me, he says that he had some qualms about the newspaper version of 1619. He then assures us that the book has resolved the vast majority of the original issues, that 1619 is just another useful strand in the national cloth, and that the remaining shortcomings of the book (Hannah-Jones still wants to talk about the Founders fighting the British to preserve slavery; slavery isn’t put in its larger international context; and the positive contributions of white people, including the deaths of 300,000 Union troops in the Civil War, are downplayed or disregarded) are “minor.”
Well, excuse me, but treating the Civil War as if it were a big tornado instead of what was viewed at the time as a gory moment of national redemption is not a “minor” shortcoming. And I will say it once again–1619 is not intended to be just another strand in the national cloth. It says slavery and racism are the national cloth; nothing else matters. It isn’t just the extreme right that objects to that proposition.