Provocative excerpts from primary and secondary sources (some with audio glosses). Read the rationale behind these sound bites for more information.

641-650 of 734 Sound Bites. [show all]

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641) Tradition is as inalienable as blood inheritance. In short, we shall resemble our past as a son his father, but we shall be so different that our past would scarcely recognize us and would probably disown us. (Ralph Barton Perry, qtd. in Kammen, Mystic 2) [SoundBite #20]

642) Historical feature films tend to confirm popular existing perceptions of the past while academic historians tend to challenge these. (Mike Chopra-Gant 86) [SoundBite #1257]

643) The crude commercialism of America…[is] entirely due to that country having adopted for its national hero a man who, according to his own confession, was incapable of telling a lie…. (Oscar Wilde, qtd. in Hirsch 24) [SoundBite #25]

644) The history of this country that has been taught has long been the watered-down, privileged version. Historians have typically been middle to upper-class white males that have seen the past only through their own eyes and have tried to present the best America possible. The term “multiculturalism” is indeed ingeniously and accurately coined; we are a nation of many cultures that blend together. We have always been from various backgrounds, and only recently has there been enough respect to include them all in our “collective” history. In fact, this change is not just politically motivated but motivated by the masses. The numerous cultural groups “of people” have gained enough privilege to demand to be included in history. The only historical and cultural distortion was the bland history that was taught in previous generations. History does not contain only one vision (which would make revisionism impossible) but is a compilation of thousands of visions. Every American has his or her own American history. It is about time that we try to educate ourselves on some of those little-known histories of the different cultures of America. (Anne Rodriguez, Lehigh University) [SoundBite #1237]

645) If film-makers have our permission to tell fanciful lies, we nonetheless insist that they make those lies moderately credible. We require "true" lies, depictions of the past and present that are comprehensible to us and that locate our own private stories within a larger collective narrative. (George Lipsitz 24) [SoundBite #390]

646) Textbook authors need not concern themselves unduly with what actually happened in history, since publishers use patriotism, rather than scholarship, to sell their books. (James W. Loewen 278) [SoundBite #1310]

647) The course has made it clear that directors and screenwriters, as artists, make conscious decisions about the history that they portray on the big screen. We choose what we want to remember about events of the past and manipulate how we will remember them. This “selective memory” influences the way knowledge is spread to younger generations, rivaling textbooks and challenging the viewer to react. The title of this course takes this tainted view of “real history” into account; Reel American History captures the reel portrayal of historic events, designed to foster real impact. (Kelley Higgins, Lehigh University) [SoundBite #2538]

648) [There is] the "narrative of the nation," as it is told and retold in national histories, literatures, the media and popular culture. These provide a set of stories, images, landscapes, scenarios, historical events, national symbols and rituals which stand for, or "represent," the shared experiences, sorrows, and triumphs and disasters which give meaning to the nation. As members of such an "imagined community," we see ourselves in our mind's eye sharing in this narrative. It lends significance and importance to our humdrum existence, connecting our everyday lives with a national destiny that preexisted us and will outlive us. (Stuart Hall 293) [SoundBite #240]

649) [High school textbooks] see our politics as part of a morality play in which the United States typically acts on behalf of human rights, democracy, and the "American Way." When Americans have done wrong, according to this view, it has been because others misunderstood us, or perhaps because we misunderstood the situation. (James W. Loewen 211) [SoundBite #1328]

650) Films allows us to engage and question our history in a way that our grammar school textbooks encourage us not to. (Nick Alakel, Lehigh University) [SoundBite #2535]