DWMs... not to be confused with WMDs...

A few years ago I was taking a correspondence class on Western European history which used a few books that coudl be classified as "revisionist". In answering one of the questions, and to set the tone for how I would be interpreting what I was reading, I included a few paragraphs from a history book that I had read shortly before the class. The author, Samuel W. Mitcham Jr. a professor of geography at Northeast Louisiana University included in his introduction that to know history was to read biographies. I don't know if I agree with that statement, but I did find in this intro, a couple of paragraphs that I really found interesting. I used these paragraphs in the history correspondence class to help answer a question. What the question was I can't exactly remember, but I do recall that the instructor could not debate the logic of the arguement presented by Mitcham.

I have no real reason for why I am putting this in my blog other than I was looking through my personal library for something to read and came across the book and thought I would publish it in my blog. It still has as much meaning today as it did in 1997 when it was published. So here it is.... For what it's worth.

The book this comes from is "The Deset Fox in Normandy" published in 1997 by Preager Press, Connecticut.

"To understand history, one must read biography - especially the biographies of famous leaders. This goes against the current fad in many American Universities - where it is considered unfashionable or "politically incorrect" to study or write about "DWMs" (dead white males), a term usually muttered by leftist and largely socialist professors with a slight air of contempt, condescension, and perceived (and self-ordained) intellectual self-superiority. Unfortunately, these people write as they think, which is why so much garbage and so little of substance or importance is being produced by the vast majority of them. Like it or not, we owe our Western Civilization, our democratic and religious institutions, our values, and most thinkgs that make life worth living, to DWMs - not to affirmative action and other similar scams."

(Mitchell continues to explains that DWMs have also been the source of a great deal of havoc and misery. He does not deny that. But he does explain that usually with those sorts of DWM's there also comes to the forefront, the heroes of history. Which is why he was writing the book on Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.)

Anyway, I present this here for your consumption and let you decide for yourself how you feel about the study of history.

Feel free to comment. I may or may not respond.

Later!