Kevin Bruyneel (Babson): The American Liberal Colonial Tradition; and The Trouble with Amnesia: Collective Memory and Colonial Injustice in the United States. From the latest issue of The Hedgehog Review, a special section on the American Dream, including Jim Cullen (Fieldston): Problems and Promises of the Self-Made Myth; Paul A. Cantor (Virginia): The Apocalyptic Strain in Popular Culture: The American Nightmare Becomes the American Dream; and Joseph E. Davis interviews Jonathan Rieder, author of Gospel of Freedom: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and the Struggle That Changed a Nation. Michael Taube reviews Native Americans: Patriotism, Exceptionalism, and the New American Identity by James S. Robbins. David Azerrad on the Declaration of Independence and the American creed. From Cracked, John Cheese on the 4 types of people on welfare nobody talks about; and J.F. Sargent on 5 insane laws written specifically to harass poor people. Aristocracy in America: Paul A. Cantor on Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn — “how could such a classic story of America be so dark and misanthropic?” As we do the hullabaloo about George Washington, fireworks, the Declaration of Independence — all that Americana — let’s recall that hyphenated Americans, with all their supposedly traditional food and music and humor and pride, were also made in America.
