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Original Image: “‘Declaration of Independence,” by John Trumbull/The Bridgeman Art Library

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html?em=&amp;pagewanted=all">Article</a> in The New York Times.

<em>This is how history is made — or rather, how the hue and cry of the present and near past gets lodged into the long-term cultural memory or else is allowed to quietly fade into an inaudible whisper. </em><em> </em>

<em>Maybe the most striking thing about current history textbooks is that they have lost a controlling narrative. America is no longer portrayed as one thing, one people, but rather a hodgepodge of issues and minorities, forces and struggles. If it were possible to cast the concerns of the Christian conservatives into secular terms, it might be said that they find this lack of a through line and purpose to be disturbing and dangerous. Many others do as well, of course.
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<em>“The founders were not as Christian as those people would like them to be, though they weren’t as secularist as <a title="More articles about Christopher Hitchens." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/christopher_hitchens/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Christopher Hitchens</a> would like them to be.” (Richard Brookhiser).
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<em>-Russel Shorto</em>