The Untold History of the United States Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick. New York: Gallery Books, 2012.

The Untold History of the United States Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick. New York: Gallery Books, 2012.Professional historians are not likely to find much shocking in filmmaker Oliver Stone's and American University professor Peter Kuznick's The Untold History of the United States. Essentially, their argument against the American empire presented in the book is not radically different from that of such progressive historians as Charles Beard in the early twentieth century or the New Left historiography influenced by the work of William Appleman Williams in the 1960s. And many contemporary historians generally agree with the Stone and Kuznick critique of American empire. Nevertheless, the general public retains its allegiance to notions of an exceptional and benevolent America intent upon its mission of spreading freedom, democracy, and economic prosperity to the world. So much for the idea that radical professors are brainwashing American youth to question the concept of American hegemony. But this time, revisionist historians have a gifted filmmaker to support their case with an accompanying ten-part film series which Stone directed for the Showtime cable television network.Scholars on the right disagree with the critique of American empire presented in The Secret History of the United States, asserting that Stone and Kuznick are influenced by the historical revisionism of Howard Zinn and fail to give adequate attention to the crimes committed by communist dictators such as Joseph Stalin. Similar to Zinn, Stone and Kuznick do rely primarily upon secondary sources, but, unlike Zinn, they do provide endnote citations for their sources. In addition, they claim that due to the rather unthinking embrace of the nation's history by most Americans, who are quite aware of the sins committed by Stalin, it is necessary to challenge popular complacency by concentrating upon how the United States has often betrayed its mission. Accordingly, Kuznick and Stone hope that their work will aid in fostering a movement of people, both in the United States and the world, who will no longer tolerate domination by "the wealthiest, greediest, and most powerful" and assist the United States in regaining "its democratic, egalitarian, and revolutionary soul" (615).This mass movement rhetoric, however, is somewhat at odds with the biographical approach taken by the authors in developing their history. The Untold History of the United States is hardly a comprehensive American history text. The emphasis is upon the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and America's relationship with the world during this time period. Thus, the book begins with the Spanish American War in 1898 and the emergence of the United States as a colonial power. Commencing with Franklin Roosevelt, Stone and Kuznick tend to tightly construct their narrative around US Presidents and how all of these leaders, some more than others, have perpetuated the expansion of an American empire. This approach personalizes the criticisms made by Stone and Kuznick, taking attention away from American business interests searching for cheap labor and markets.Stone and Kuznick do not simply offer villains, but they extol a hero in the person of Henry A. Wallace. After serving as Secretary of Agriculture during the early years of the New Deal, Wallace became Vice President in 1940. Many in the Democratic Party and business community, however, found Wallace to be too liberal and sympathetic to America's Soviet allies. At the 1944 Democratic National Convention, Roosevelt, seeking a fourth term, was forced to drop Wallace from the ticket in favor of Missouri Senator Harry Truman. Following the death of Roosevelt, Truman authorized the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in addition to taking an uncompromising stance with the Soviets and implementing policies such as the Truman Doctrine. Stone and Kuznick speculate that the Cold War with its carnage and waste might have been avoided if Wallace rather than Truman had assumed the Presidency in 1945. …