In "Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story," the distinguished historian Wilfred McClay has produced a thorough yet accessible overview of American history. Neither condemning nor whitewashing America and her people, McClay faithfully recounts our nation's past from the vantage point of a partisan of the principles of the American Founding – those of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. At a time when questions concerning how to understand America are being debated in the public square – for example, is America fundamentally flawed and built on slavery and subjugation as Howard Zinn and the New York Times's 1619 Project claim – McClay tells an inspiring account of America based on truth instead of ideology. His book can help form individuals living in America into informed and patriotic citizens, willing to pass on the blessings of liberty they received to future generations.
Please visit Encounter Books's website for more information on "Land of Hope" and "A Teacher's Guide to Land of Hope."
Excerpts
Declaration of Independence
"Accordingly, Jefferson proclaimed it a 'self-evident' truth that all men were created equal and were endowed by their Creator – and not by their government or any other human authority – with certain rights, including 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' Governments existed to secure these rights and derived their powers from the consent of the governed – a crisp statement of the basic principle of self-rule. When a government failed to secure those rights. . . Read more.
Race & Slavery
"It would be profoundly wrong to contend, as some do, that the United States was 'founded on' slavery. No, it was founded on other principles entirely, on principles of liberty and self-rule that had been discovered and defined and refined and enshrined through the tempering effects of several turbulent centuries of European and British and American history. Those foundational principles would win out in the end, though not without much struggle and striving. . . Read more.
Learn American History from Wilfred McClay
Selected Pieces
"Rediscovering the Wisdom in American History," Imprimis: Professional American historiography has made steady advances in the breadth and sophistication with which it approaches certain aspects of the past, but those advances have come at the expense of public knowledge and shared historical consciousness. The story of America has been fractured into a thousand pieces and burdened with so much ideological baggage that studying history actually alienates young Americans from the possibility of properly appreciating their past. Nearly 20 years ago I wrote a small book. . . Read more.
"The Weaponization of History," Wall Street Journal: History is the most humbling and humanizing of subjects. It opens reality to us in all its gorgeous variety, from the earthbound lives of ordinary peasants and servants to the rarefied universe of the mighty and wealthy, and the astonishing range of human experience in between. It seeks to provide a balanced and honest record of humanity’s achievements and enormities alike, generous enough to acknowledge the mixture of motives that every one of us flawed humans bring to life’s tasks. . . Read more.
"The Genius of American Patriotism," Fox News: There is a strong tendency in modern American society to treat patriotism as a dangerous sentiment, a passion to be guarded against. But this is a serious misconception. To begin with, we should acknowledge that there is something natural about patriotism, as an expression of love for what is one’s own, gratitude for what one has been given, and reverence for the sources of one’s being. These responses are instinctive; they’re grounded. . . Read more.
"Reclaiming History from Howard Zinn," Wall Street Journal: If you’re old enough to remember the Soviet Union, you’ve probably wondered why so many young people today seem attracted to socialism. One influence is Howard Zinn, who published “A People’s History of the United States” in 1980, the year before the first millennials were born. The book “continues to be assigned in countless college and high-school courses, but its commercial sales have remained strong as well,” the Chronicle of Higher Education reported in 2003, on the occasion. . . Read more.
"No Creed Without Culture," American Mind: The question of American national identity will be with us for a long time to come, so there will continue to be good reasons to revisit Samuel Huntington’s work repeatedly, along with subtle and respectful critiques of his work like this one from Charles Kesler. Still, it seems to me that the questions facing us have shifted a great deal in the past fifteen years, in ways that have greatly strengthened. . . Read more.
"How the New York Times Is Distorting History," Commentary: The New York Times seems to have made a grand splash with the August debut of its 1619 Project, which it unveiled to the world as an audacious effort to “reframe” all of American history as little more than the lengthened shadow of slavery. The title derives from the historical fact that 400 years ago, some 20 Africans were dropped off by (probably) a British privateer at Jamestown, Virginia—the first such individuals to appear in the British mainland North American colonies. . . Read more.
Media
Podcasts
- Liberty Law Talk, Law & Liberty, "An Invitation to the Land of Hope: A Conversation with Bill McClay"
- First Things Podcast, First Things, "A Conversation with Wilfred McClay"
- The Learning Curve, Pioneer Institute, "Wilfred McClay on his new book, Land of Hope"
- The Bookmonger, National Review, "Land of Hope by Wilfred McClay"
- The Power Line Show, Power Line Blog, "The Antidote to Howard Zinn?"
Videos
- Hillsdale College, "An Overview of Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story"
- CSPAN, "Book Talk on Land of Hope"
- The Eric Metaxas Show, "Wilfred McClay on Land of Hope"
- Pepperdine School of Public Policy, "Recovering the American Story"
Selected Reviews
Allen Guelzo, Claremont Review of Books: Earlier this year, the Connecticut legislature adopted a bill which mandated the creation of a one-credit course on black and Latino history for the state’s high schools. “American history seemed to be a long catalog of kings, presidents, generals, a few industrialists and a couple of investors, that was about it,” complained the bill’s sponsor, Edwin Vargas of Hartford. But “religious, racial and ethnic groups, women. . . Read more.
Michael Taube, Washington Times: In May, The Wall Street Journal published an intriguing interview between Naomi Schaefer-Riley and intellectual historian Wilfred M. McClay. The University of Oklahoma professor’s goal for his then-upcoming book was to be the “antidote” to Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” (1980). In his view, Mr. Zinn’s leftist book had been “greatly oversimplifying the past and turning American history into a comic-book melodrama. . ." Read more.
Philip Terzian, Commentary: The ignorance of Americans about their history has a long history. You can find surveys of freshman classes at Harvard, conducted a century ago, that reveal startling lapses in basic knowledge. The myths of American history – the comforting fairy tales and conspiracy theories and outright inventions – are as numerous as the facts, and frequently better known. Even in the heyday of the liberal arts on campus, history was. . . Read more.
Stephen Tootle, National Review: Pofessors and teachers across America should cancel their fall book orders and replace their current textbooks with Wilfred McClay’s Land of Hope. McClay, the G. T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty at the University of Oklahoma, satisfies the promise made in the title of his latest work. In it, he invites everyone to learn how ideals drove America’s creation and success. . . Read more.
Mike Sabo, Modern Age: The eminent historian Wilfred M. McClay has produced his masterwork, a sweeping overview of American history titled Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story. Written most immediately for high school students taking Advanced Placement courses, the book looks and feels the part of a history textbook. But unlike most of those dreary tomes, it reads like a bestselling thriller. In finely wrought yet readable prose, history comes alive in McClay’s expansive and thoughtful appraisal of the American story. . . Read more.
Tim Rice, City Journal: Wilfred McClay’s Land of Hope wastes no time making its purpose known. The first thing you notice about it is that it looks like a textbook. From its heft and glossy pages to its artistic cover and evocative subtitle (“An Invitation to the Great American Story”), this volume would look perfectly at home on a school desk, in a backpack, or jammed into a locker. Without even opening it, though, you can tell that Land of Hope is very different from that other book with which it is being been compared – Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. . . Read more.
Bruce P. Frohnen, University Bookman: In this fine book, Wilfred McClay makes an important contribution to American education and culture. Every year it seems American young people emerge from school knowing less about their history even as they become more hostile toward their own tradition and values. The reason is not far to find. For decades, high schools and colleges have been subjecting students to textbooks designed to teach them that the United States can only be understood as that place where repeated injustices have been committed. . . Read more.
Howard L. Muncy, Public Discourse: Selecting a textbook is one of the most important choices that any instructor can make. When designing a course on American history, the process is even more critical. Some standard history texts are blatantly biased, while far more subtly tilt historical information in favor of a certain point of view. Many current works suffer from a modern historiography that reads the American story almost exclusively through. . . Read more.
Ian Lindquist, Providence: Americans are a morally ambitious, aspirational people. They are also a pragmatic people. These two qualities often find themselves at odds, and American citizenship often takes a seemingly self-contradictory form because it can manifest itself as criticism of America’s shortcomings in the light of her moral aspirations, or deep appreciation and affection for what she has achieved and accomplished in the light of the difficulties she has faced. . . Read more.
Marc C. Shug, Library of Economics and Liberty: American history isn’t what it used to be. Once it was common for a history textbook author to tell a good story. I remember as an eighth-grade student being horrified that my teacher was going to toss out a bunch of history textbooks. She asked: “Does anyone want these old books?” My hand shot up immediately. I loved the stories.Thanks to Wilfred McClay’s new book titled "Land of Hope: An Invitation to the American Story" we have a better alternative. It is a concise American history text with a traditional table of contents. . . Read more.
RealClear's American Civics portal explores the principles and practices every patriotic citizen should know.
