It seems to me that, if you plan to write a book exploding the myths of popular history, you might want to start out by establishing your credentials to enhance believability instead of shooting yourself in the foot.

Most of the entries in this book are just a few pages, not enough to establish truth or lack thereof, but enough to provide lots of white space to enhance the thickness of the tome without bogging the reader down with content. To make matters worse, Schenkman writes in the worst Scholastic Book Club patronizing tone, which serves to put off the intelligent reader.

Unless you've tapped out all other sources, I wouldn't bother with this book.

For example, Shenkman spares great pains to tell us that works of fiction (Shakespeare, Hans Brinker, etc.) aren't true at all - they're fiction! (Perhaps in the sequal he can inform us that Harry Potter isn't a real person).

Although he admits his biases up front, this doesn't give him carte blanche to revel in them. Shenkman is unabashedly Ameri-centric, and his prejudice against other nations is sometimes appalling. For example, he denigrates the British for not being completely stoic during the Battle of Britain in WWII. His evidence? One person's diary shows that he (gasp) went to two luncheon parties during one week! Horrors! He denigrates heroes of France, England and India because, basically, they were human. God forbid!

The book isn't all bad. Shenkman (when he actually quotes his sources and doesn't prattle on about minutia) does a great service by asking us to examine our history instead of getting it spoon-fed to us. As such, this book makes a nice starting point for the re-exploration of history. If only he'd given us more to chew on, instead of a thin, sarcastic gruel.

What he does do, however, is cause you to pause, and think, about some of the things you might have believed for years based solely upon what Hollywood and others have passed off as legitimate history. Such as those great Western allies and Chinese "patriots" Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, and those "authentic" Spanish Civil War battle scenes - shot in a bathtub in New Jersey.

What he might have included, as examples of manipulative history, was Frank Capra's unjustifiably renowned "why we fight" video series which shows, among other gross inaccuracies, the "gallant" Russians, prior to the Nazi invasion, toiling away in Socialist bliss. Because Capra compiled this DURING the war, no mention was made, of course, of the murderous Stalinist purges that sent millions of his own people to their deaths. The problem is, the series is STILL being sold as "historical" accounts of the era.

Sure, you can poke holes in what author Shenkman writes. Isn't that the whole point of history? As George Santayana said [and who is quoted in the Conclusion of this book] "History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten."

One of my jabs is aimed squarely at the chapter "World War II" where the author attempts to justify the appeasement of Hitler by Britain - specifically Chamberlain. He says the Munich Accord [the sell-out of Czechoslovakia] not only produced peace [however temporarily], but that Britain was in no position to take on Germany in 1938.

Now while that is certainly true, what he completely overlooks are the relative strengths of France and Germany at that time. France had a pact with the Czechs, and a move by Daladier and the French Army, Navy and Air Force [which dwarfed the Germans at that time] would have caused Hitler to cave in. Indeed, his own generals were absolutely petrified at the prospect of going head to head with France in 1938 with inferior tanks and less aircraft! The fact is, France did not need Britain in 1938 - except for moral support. What the French did NOT have in 1938 was the courage of their convictions. And THAT Hitler banked upon.

He counted on it again a year later when, in September 1939, he invaded Poland, leaving his Western flank virtually defenceless. By this time Britain was stronger both from manpower and materiel
standpoints, and so was France. An attack then and again Hitler would have had no choice but to capitulate as he was in no position to fight a two-front war.

Not only does the author not even mention that possibility, he then goes on to punch a few holes in his own Munich argument later in the chapter when he says that, when Germany attacked France in May 1940, the latter were STILL better equipped than the Germans in almost every respect [although he does acknowledge that the reason for their quick collapse - quicker than the Poles by the way - was a lack of a will to fight.

But that's the fun of looking back. Opinions will vary widely on what should or should not have been done, and you can argue forever as to who was right and who was wrong.

I like the book because what it made me do was go out and seek the more straightforward, no-axes-to-grind historical accounts that simply present the facts and allow you to draw your own conclusions. THAT's the way history should always be presented.