CHAPTER 10: DOWN THE MEMORY HOLE: THE

DISAPPEARANCE OF THE RECENT PAST

1 Quoted by Daniel Barenboim, “Germans, Jews, and Music,” New York
Review of Books, 3/29/2001, 50.

2 Goering, quoted by U.S. Army Capt. Gustave Gilbert in Nuremberg Diary
(Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 1995 [1947?]); cf. pinkfreud-ga, “Answer,”
7/26/2003, at answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=
235519 , 5/2007.

3 1972 presidential proclamation to strengthen the Freedom of Information
Act, quoted in Tim Weiner, “The Cold War Freezer Keeps Historians Out,”
New York Times, May 23, 1993.

4 John Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (Oxford: Heinemann, 1990).

5 I used the qualifier narrative textbooks in the previous paragraph because
the examination revealed a striking difference between the two “inquiry”
textbooks and narrative books. Discovering American History and The
American Adventure, which consist largely of maps, illustrations, and extracts
from primary sources, do not downplay the sasha. Indeed, their attention to the
recent past reflects their authors’ intention of making history relevant to current
events and issues. Therefore, despite the fact that both of the books were
published before the 1970s ended, they give more space to the 1960s and
1970s than do the sixteen narrative textbooks. Unfortunately, inquiry textbooks
have long since gone out of favor and print; so far as I know, none remains on
the market.

6 I put 2007 in quotation marks because publishers lie on their copyright page;
I owned the “2007” book since early 2006, and it contains no information more
recent than mid-2005.

7 Tracy Kidder, Among Schoolchildren (New York: Harper Perennial, 1990).

8 Gordon Levin Jr., Woodrow Wilson and World Politics: America’s Response
to War and Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 260. Cf.
Arthur S. Link, untitled essay in J. J. Huthmacher and W. I. Susman, eds.,