August 14, 2005

RALEIGH – As Iraqis seek to meet their historic deadline for fashioning the first constitution of a truly free government in the Arab world, the author of A Patriot’s History of the United States will be in Raleigh Tuesday to discuss the founding of America’s own democratic experiment and its influence across the globe.

Dr. Larry Schweikart is a professor of Business, Science, and Technology History at the University of Dayton. He will be the featured speaker at noon on Tuesday, August 16 at a John Locke Foundation Headliner luncheon at the Holiday Inn Brownstone in Raleigh. The event will also serve as a kick-off of the Locke Foundation’s new North Carolina History Project, an ongoing series of lectures and publications focusing attention on the key historical events, personalities, and trends that help shape North Carolina’s politics, economy, and culture today.

Schweikart is the co-author (with Michael Allen) of A Patriot’s History of the United States: From Columbus’s Great Discovery to the War on Terror, published by Sentinel HC Publishers.

The book decries what the authors call an unfair and negative representation of American history in most school textbooks and university-based programs of historical research and study.

“Having taught American history…for close to 60 years between us,” Schweikart and Allen write, “we are aware that, unfortunately, many students are berated with tales of the Founders as self-interested politicians and slaveholders, of the icons of American industry as robber-baron oppressors, and of every American foreign policy initiative as imperialistic and insensitive.”

Schweikart and Allen do not sanitize the darker days of the history of the United States. Rather, their book provides a full range of accounts so readers can draw their own conclusions and, the authors write, so that the past is left to speak for itself.

“The evidence is there for telling the great story of the American past honestly,” they continue. “With flaws, absolutely; with shortcomings, most definitely.”

Schweikart and Allen conclude that a full evaluation of American history reveals a country that is a symbol of hope and freedom for its inhabitants and others around the world.

“We think that an honest evaluation of the history of the United States must begin and end with the recognition that, compared to any other nation, America’s past is a bright and shining light,” they write. “America was, and is, the city on the hill, the fountain of hope, the beacon of liberty.”

The Locke Foundation’s North Carolina History Project is headed by Dr. Troy Kickler. With a doctorate in history from the University of Tennessee, Kickler specializes in 19th century American history, the Civil War & Reconstruction, African-American history, and religious history. Over the coming months, the project will host a series of events and tours, generate articles on historical topics for Carolina Journal and other publications, and prepare new on-line resources for students, researchers, and the general public on North Carolina history.

For more information about Dr. Larry Schweikart’s appearance in Raleigh on Tuesday, August 16, please call Summer Hood at 919-828-3876 or visit the John Locke Foundation’s website.