The Lost History of Western Civilization

The Lost History of Western Civilization finds the secret of America’s polarized politics in the campus culture wars that kicked off at Stanford over thirty years ago. Ever since the Stanford clash, American scholars have claimed that Western Civilization was a myth created by the government during World War I to trick American soldiers into fighting and dying in Europe. The report draws on a deep refutation of this landmark “deconstructionist” claim to develop a new way of looking at the battle between multiculturalism and traditional American conceptions of citizenship. The report explains the link between the relativist skepticism of academics and the moral certainties driving constant accusations of racism and bigotry on campus and beyond. By unearthing the work of great but long-forgotten historians who taught generations of Americans about Western Civilization, the report also casts a new light on the meaning of American exceptionalism. The follies and limitations of deconstructionist, multiculturalist, postmodern, and intersectional thinking are exposed throughout this report. Yet the report also points to a way out. Western civilization is real, not invented, and has never truly disappeared. American college students are deeply a part of Western Civilization, minorities very much included. Recovering, restoring, and teaching the great books and the lost history of Western Civilization still has the potential to unite a divided nation. Free PDF version provided by the Publisher at: https://www.nas.org/reports/the-lost-history-of-western-civilization