With the notable exception of Politically Correct Fairy Tales (Damn Funny) and the comedy of Bill Maher(Funny Sometimes) you just know that anything being labeled "Politically Incorrect" is just going to suck. Just because you label yourself politically incorrect doesn't make you any less of an ass. Here's a hint you are not an anti-PC truth teller when you bag on gays and minorities. Your just a jerk. Which brings us to The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, which I turn over to David Greenberg from Slate to deliver the beating it's due:
It would be tedious to debunk The Politically Incorrect Guide chapter by chapter. Suffice it to say that the book asserts that the American Revolution was no revolution at all; that the Civil War was not about slavery; that the so-called robber barons made America great; that the New Deal made the Depression worse; that the war on poverty made poverty worse; that Clinton's intervention in Bosnia was a waste of taxpayer money. Not only does Woods reduce complex events to these kinds of simplistic interpretations, he doesn't even acknowledge that rival interpretations exist. It's history not as analysis but as catechism.
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It was only a matter of time before this kind of thinking spread to history. Politics has always colored the ways that people interpret the past, but The Politically Incorrect Guide politicizes history in a new way, reducing all scholarly inquiry to a mere stance in the culture wars.
This stuff is crap pure and simple. It's for people who never want their world view challenged. Ever.
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