The Hopeful Land

Wilfred McClay’s marvelous essay on American history, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story, pushes back against the content and the form of American history textbooks: “It [Land of Hope] means to offer to American readers, young and old alike, an accurate, responsible, coherent, persuasive, and inspiring narrative account of their own country—an account that will inform and deepen their sense of the land they inhabit and equip them for the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship.” Alas, there is need. The acids of anti-Americanism, both Marxist and Multicultural, have produced a generation of textbooks unwilling to regard America with affection or as a unity. McClay indeed has written what history textbooks avoid: an engaging narrative, without the anxious busyness of footnotes, section breaks, insets, or charts. McClay follows Adam Smith’s stricture that “It is