This Land Is Your Land is a new book by Beverly Gage. It is structured as "a travelogue of [Gage's] recent journeys to memorials, monuments, national parks and other points of interest across the country." Gage is currently serving as a professor of history at Yale University, and her recent book was reviewed on April 2, 2026, in The Wall Street Journal.
The picture above, showing the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, is to reference what the reviewer thinks was a major failing in Gage's book:
Gage ... could have visited Dayton, Ohio's many sites devoted to the Wright Brothers and their world-changing invention. She might have mentioned Hollywood or Broadway, two wellsprings of U.S. cultural soft power. None of these destinations made her itinerary. Innovators and entrepreneurs such as Ford and George Pullman, discussed on visits to Detroit and Chicago, respectively, figure mainly as exploiters of the working class."
Gage, in other words, is being faulted for her lack of "boosterism," something I discussed in an earlier blog posting of mine, "Is Self-Congratulation Really What We Need?" That blog posting, too, referenced a column in The Wall Street Journal.
What struck me in the Wall Street Journal's review of Gage's book was not, actually, its continuing efforts to promote American self-congratulation. I was captured by the very first paragraph in the review, which reads as follows (emphasis added):
The French historian Ernest Renan identified the tension between a nation-state’s need for a legitimizing narrative and the often ugly truths of its actual past. “Forgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation,” Renan declared in 1882. Hence, “progress in historical studies often constitutes a danger for nationality. Indeed, historical enquiry brings to light deeds of violence which took place at the origin of all political formations, even of those whose consequences have been altogether beneficial.”
Let's think about slavery, and the continued racial discrimination that still haunts our nation's daily life. Let's think about the abasement of women in the political life of the country. Let's think about the concentration camps into which President Roosevelt sent U.S. citizens of Japanese descent in World War II. Let's think about wars of aggrandizement, and the studied disregard of mercy, as United States armed forces recently killed men floating in the water, and hoping to be rescued, after their small boat was destroyed by an attack by the United States' military.
This nation has much for which it can, and should, "congratulate itself." It also has much for which it ought to attone. The question raised, for me, by the first paragraph of the book review, the paragraph that I have reproduced above, is how we need to think about "forgetfulness" and "self-forgiveness," as we consider our history.
In college, I majored in United States history. And I think we do need to "remember" the horrible things that Americans have done, and we must label them for what they were, errors, sins, and crimes. On the other hand, we are alive now, and the most important thing that we can do is to understand our power, today, to do something different, something "new," something we believe will be "good," something never even thought about before.
Forget the past? I think not. If Renan suggests that we should "forget," I don't think I can follow him there.
But forgiveness? Can we not forgive ourselves, and not only collectively, but forgive those individuals who did the horrible things, in our names, that we cannot forget?
I suggest we can. The only kind of "forgetfulness" that is legitimate is the "forgive and forget" variety, in which "forgiveness" comes first, which then permits us to "forget" the horrible things we have done (individually and collectively) - at least in the sense of not being haunted and tormented for them. Of course, we don't actually "forget" those horrible things - or, at least, we shouldn't. We simply need to make "forgiveness" come first. We must forgive ourselves, our families, and our nation for the things that we, or they, shouldn't have done, but did in fact do (or the things we should have done, but didn't).
It is only when we can forgive ourselves, and others, in this way, that we can truly accomplish something new, and different, and better, and transformative. It is only when we place forgiveness first that we can allow ourselves to set aside our sins (and others' sins), and strive forward, in a new day, to create a new and better reality, a new and better "now," which is the moment in which we are alive, and in which we have - we always have - the power to act!
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