From Common-place, a special issue on music and meaning in early America. Cherry-picking our history: Sean Wilentz reviews The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick. The idea of the Lost Cause itself is an act of shifting historical blame from the evils of chattel slavery to perceived imperial aggression from Yankees. Alan Taylor reviews The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675 by Bernard Bailyn. When prostitution wasn't a crime: Melissa Gira Grant on the fascinating history of sex work in America. Raymond G. Kessler reviews The Founders' Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms by Stephen P. Halbrook. It might be ancient history that the U.S. hired and protected thousands of Nazi war criminals, but there’s no time like the present to right those wrongs.
