science who disproved the flat-earth notion and opened a new hemisphere to
progress. This nineteenth-century Columbus appealed to a nation concluding
three hundred years of triumphant warfare over Indian nations. But by 1992
many Columbus celebrations drew countercelebrations, often mounted by
Native Americans; now Columbus the exploiter began receiving equal billing
with Columbus the explorer. The “new” Columbus, closer to the Columbus of
the sasha , appealed to a nation that had to get along with dozens of former
colonies of European powers, now new nations, often governed by people of
color. By 2007, as we have seen, even our textbooks began to record
disastrous as well as beneficial consequences of the Columbian Exchange. The
contrast between the 1892 and 1992 celebrations of Columbus’s first voyage
again shows the effect of different vantage points. As Anaïs Nin put it, we see
things as we are, and “we” changed between 1892 and 1992.
The Confederate myth of Reconstruction first permeated the historical
literature during the nadir of race relations, from 1890 to 1940, and hung on in
textbooks until the 1960s. Reconstruction regimes came to be portrayed as
illegitimate and corrupt examples of “Negro domination.” Now historians have
returned to the view of Reconstruction put forth in earlier histories, written
while Republican governments still administered the Southern states. Eric
Foner hails the change as owed to “objective scholarship and modern
experience,” a turn of phrase that concisely links the two key causes. Objective
scholarship does exist in history, which is why I risk words like truth and lies.
Unfortunately, the passage of time does not in itself foster objective
scholarship. Mere chronological distance did not promote a more accurate
depiction of Reconstruction. Because the facts about Reconstruction simply did
not suit the “modern experience” of the nadir period, they lay mute during the
early decades of the twentieth century, overlooked by most historians. Not until
the civil rights movement altered “modern experience” could the facts speak to
us.^9 Historical perspective is thus not a by-product of the passage of time. A
more accurate view derives from Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive
dissonance, which suggests that the social practices of the period when history
is written largely determine that history’s perspective on the past.^10 Objective
scholarship must be linked with a modern experience that permits it to prevail.
In writing about the recent past, then, textbook authors may not be
disadvantaged by any lack of historical perspective. On the contrary, the
recency of events confers three potential benefits upon them. First, since the