"It is useful to remember that history is to the nation as memory is to the individual. As persons deprived of memory, they become disoriented and lost, not knowing where they have been and where they are going. So a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future." -- historian, educator, author and Presidential advisor Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (10/15/1917 - 2/28/2007). Author of A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (1965) and The Age of Jackson (1946), winning Pulitzer Prizes for both books, Schlesinger would have been appalled, but not shocked, at today's right wing cultural movement banning books and white washing American history to provide a wedge issue for Republicans. Altering or erasing memory in an individual is akin to brain washing, and doing the same for its history weakens a nation.
(photo: Schlesinger with President Kennedy. White House photo)
