Kenneth C. Davis's Blog, page 108

Don't Know Much About the "Negro Riots" in Watts

The recent urban riots in London that spread to other parts of England beg an obvious question: Can it happen in America?

Of course, it has already happened in America, more than once. Most famously, perhaps, it happened nearly half a century ago on a hot summer night in the Los Angeles neighborhood known as Watts.

While the times and many circumstances are very different between England now and America then, the American experience with urban rioting –now seemingly forgotten– is worth remembering because many of the root causes seem to be the same.

It started with a "DWB"– "driving while black." On August 11, 1965, an all-too-frequent stop of a young black man exploded into one of the worst urban riots in American history.

Where: Watts was a rundown district of shabby houses built near the highway approaching Los Angeles International Airport. Ninety-eight percent black, Watts was stewing in a California heat wave. In the stewpot were all the ingredients of black anger. Poverty. Overcrowding. High unemployment. Crime everywhere. Drugs widely available. The nearly all-white police force was seen as an occupation army.

When: On August 11, a policeman pulled over a young black man to check him for drunken driving. When the young man was arrested, a crowd gathered. Within a few hours the crowd had grown to a mob, and the frustration was no longer simmering in the August heat. It exploded.

What By nightfall of the next day, small, roving bands of young people throwing rocks and bottles had grown to a mob of thousands. Rocks and bottles were replaced by Molotov cocktails as the riot erupted into a full-blown street rebellion with widespread looting. Among the most popular looted items were weapons, and when police and firefighters responded to the violence and fires, they were met with a hail of bullets and gasoline bombs. When Dick Gregory, the well-known African American comedian and civil rights activist, tried to calm the crowds, he was shot in the leg.

The battle raged on for days as thousands of national guardsmen poured in to restore order. There was open fighting in the streets as guardsmen set up machine-gun emplacements. By the sixth day of rioting, Watts was rubble and ashes. The toll from six days of mayhem was thirty-four killed, including rioters and guardsmen; more than 1,000 injured; 4,000 arrested; and total property damage of more than $35 million.

Why: The aftermath of Watts was more than just a body count and insurance estimates. Watts signaled a sea change in the civil-rights movement. When Martin Luther King toured the neighborhood, he was heckled. Saddened by the death and destruction, he admonished a local man, who responded,

"We won because we made the whole world pay attention to us."

Here is the original New York Times report on the "Negro Riots"

The Watts summer of 1965 was the first in a string of long, hot summers that left the cities of the North and Midwest smoldering. The worst came in 1967, particularly when Newark and Detroit were engulfed in rioting. In the wake of these rebellions, presidential commissions were appointed, studies made, and findings released. They all agreed that the problem was economic at its roots. As Martin Luther King had put it, "I worked to get these people the right to eat hamburgers, and now I've got to do something to help them get the money to buy them."

One of these studies, conducted by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, was known as the Kerner Commission. In 1968, it warned that America was

"moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal."

Here is a link to excerpts from the Kerner Commission Report:

How much has really changed?

On the 40th anniversary of the Kerner Commission Report in 2008, Bill Moyers of PBS produced a show on the Commission and what has –or hasn't — changed in four decades.

You can read more about Watts and the civil rights era in Don't Know Much About History: Anniversary Edition.

Don't Know Much About@ the "Negro Riots" in Watts

The recent urban riots in London that spread to other parts of England beg an obvious question: Can it happen in America?

Of course, it has already happened in America, more than once. Most famously, perhaps, it happened nearly half a century ago on a hot summer night in the Los Angeles neighborhood known as Watts.

While the times and many circumstances are very different between England now and America then, the American experience with urban rioting –now seemingly forgotten– is worth remembering because many of the root causes seem to be the same.

It started with a "DWB"– "driving while black." On August 11, 1965, an all-too-frequent stop of a young black man exploded into one of the worst urban riots in American history.

Where: Watts was a rundown district of shabby houses built near the highway approaching Los Angeles International Airport. Ninety-eight percent black, Watts was stewing in a California heat wave. In the stewpot were all the ingredients of black anger. Poverty. Overcrowding. High unemployment. Crime everywhere. Drugs widely available. The nearly all-white police force was seen as an occupation army.

When: On August 11, a policeman pulled over a young black man to check him for drunken driving. When the young man was arrested, a crowd gathered. Within a few hours the crowd had grown to a mob, and the frustration was no longer simmering in the August heat. It exploded.

What By nightfall of the next day, small, roving bands of young people throwing rocks and bottles had grown to a mob of thousands. Rocks and bottles were replaced by Molotov cocktails as the riot erupted into a full-blown street rebellion with widespread looting. Among the most popular looted items were weapons, and when police and firefighters responded to the violence and fires, they were met with a hail of bullets and gasoline bombs. When Dick Gregory, the well-known African American comedian and civil rights activist, tried to calm the crowds, he was shot in the leg.

The battle raged on for days as thousands of national guardsmen poured in to restore order. There was open fighting in the streets as guardsmen set up machine-gun emplacements. By the sixth day of rioting, Watts was rubble and ashes. The toll from six days of mayhem was thirty-four killed, including rioters and guardsmen; more than 1,000 injured; 4,000 arrested; and total property damage of more than $35 million.

Why: The aftermath of Watts was more than just a body count and insurance estimates. Watts signaled a sea change in the civil-rights movement. When Martin Luther King toured the neighborhood, he was heckled. Saddened by the death and destruction, he admonished a local man, who responded,

"We won because we made the whole world pay attention to us."

Here is the original New York Times report on the "Negro Riots"

The Watts summer of 1965 was the first in a string of long, hot summers that left the cities of the North and Midwest smoldering. The worst came in 1967, particularly when Newark and Detroit were engulfed in rioting. In the wake of these rebellions, presidential commissions were appointed, studies made, and findings released. They all agreed that the problem was economic at its roots. As Martin Luther King had put it, "I worked to get these people the right to eat hamburgers, and now I've got to do something to help them get the money to buy them."

One of these studies, conducted by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, was known as the Kerner Commission. In 1968, it warned that America was

"moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal."

Here is a link to excerpts from the Kerner Commission Report:

How much has really changed?

On the 40th anniversary of the Kerner Commission Report in 2008, Bill Moyers of PBS produced a show on the Commission and what has –or hasn't — changed in four decades.

You can read more about Watts and the civil rights era in Don't Know Much About History: Anniversary Edition.

Don't Know Much About Thoreau

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

On August 9, 1854, Henry David Thoreau published Walden: Or, Life in the Woods.

Born in Concord, Mass. on July 12, 1817, he was the son of a pencil-maker. Thoreau attended Harvard and later was befriended by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who eventually gave him a job as a gardener and tutor, while encouraging Thoreau's writing.  Thoreau published several books and essays, including his classic "Civil Disobedience" in opposition to the War against Mexico.

Then, in July 1845, he moved to the cabin at Walden Pond, where he lived for the next two years, two months and two days.

The Walden site of Thoreau's cabin.

Compressing those two years into a single year, he wrote Walden, his now-revered account.

It is not an "easy" book. It is not a simplistic "back to Nature" book. Even though Thoreau's work has often been reduced to bumper sticker aphorisms –"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."–the book is far more complex. Part memoir, part practical guide, it is really more about a sense of self-discovery –a spiritual search. Writing in a time of growing industrialism and mechanism, he did urge, "Simplify, simplify."

In an Introduction to a 2004 edition of Walden, the late novelist John Updike wrote:

A century and a half after its publication, Walden has become such a totem of the back-to-nature, preservationist, anti-business, civil-disobedience mindset, and Thoreau so vivid a protester, so perfect a crank and hermit saint, that the book risks being as revered and unread as the Bible. Of the American classics densely arisen in the middle of the 19th century – Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter (1850), Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), Whitman's Leaves of Grass (1855), to which we might add Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1854) as a nation-stirring bestseller and Emerson's essays as an indispensable preparation of the ground – Walden has contributed most to America's present sense of itself.

An ardent abolitionist, Thoreau gave a speech, "A Plea for Captain Brown" (later published as an essay), in honor of John Brown, whose 1859  raid on a federal arsenal was intended to provoke a massive slave insurrection and deepened the nation's divisions. Thoreau was uncompromising in his defense of Brown, despite his own image as the spokesman for nonviolent civil disobedience.

He contracted tuberculosis and suffered from it sporadically. Thoreau died in May 1862 at age 44.

An excellent collection of resources on Walden, Thoreau and his other writings can be found at the Thoreau Society website.

Thoreau and his era of the mid-19th century leading up to the Civil War are discussed in Don't Know Much About History: Anniversary Edition.

Don't Know Much About® Thoreau

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

On August 9, 1854, Henry David Thoreau published Walden: Or, Life in the Woods.

Born in Concord, Mass. on July 12, 1817, he was the son of a pencil-maker. Thoreau attended Harvard and later was befriended by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who eventually gave him a job as a gardener and tutor, while encouraging Thoreau's writing.  Thoreau published several books and essays, including his classic "Civil Disobedience" in opposition to the War against Mexico.

Then, in July 1845, he moved to the cabin at Walden Pond, where he lived for the next two years, two months and two days.

The Walden site of Thoreau's cabin.

Compressing those two years into a single year, he wrote Walden, his now-revered account.

It is not an "easy" book. It is not a simplistic "back to Nature" book. Even though Thoreau's work has often been reduced to bumper sticker aphorisms –"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."–the book is far more complex. Part memoir, part practical guide, it is really more about a sense of self-discovery –a spiritual search. Writing in a time of growing industrialism and mechanism, he did urge, "Simplify, simplify."

In an Introduction to a 2004 edition of Walden, the late novelist John Updike wrote:

A century and a half after its publication, Walden has become such a totem of the back-to-nature, preservationist, anti-business, civil-disobedience mindset, and Thoreau so vivid a protester, so perfect a crank and hermit saint, that the book risks being as revered and unread as the Bible. Of the American classics densely arisen in the middle of the 19th century – Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter (1850), Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), Whitman's Leaves of Grass (1855), to which we might add Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1854) as a nation-stirring bestseller and Emerson's essays as an indispensable preparation of the ground – Walden has contributed most to America's present sense of itself.

An ardent abolitionist, Thoreau gave a speech, "A Plea for Captain Brown" (later published as an essay), in honor of John Brown, whose 1859  raid on a federal arsenal was intended to provoke a massive slave insurrection and deepened the nation's divisions. Thoreau was uncompromising in his defense of Brown, despite his own image as the spokesman for nonviolent civil disobedience.

He contracted tuberculosis and suffered from it sporadically. Thoreau died in May 1862 at age 44.

An excellent collection of resources on Walden, Thoreau and his other writings can be found at the Thoreau Society website.

Thoreau and his era of the mid-19th century leading up to the Civil War are discussed in Don't Know Much About History: Anniversary Edition.

"Is there hope for America in era of broken trust?"

"Is there hope for American in an era of Broken Trust?" New CNN.com post

 

But in these times of great recession, bailouts, high unemployment and nonstop partisan infighting, the fundamental sense of trust the nation once possessed seems irreparably damaged. The deep divisions in Washington, evident most recently in the wrangling over the debt ceiling, drove this home. Opinion polls in the wake of the debate confirmed the worst news for the Beltway Crowd: Confidence in Congress has plunged to an all-time low.

Read the complete post at CNN.com

Don't Know Much About@ History: Anniversary Edition

Don't Know Much About® The Gulf of Tonkin Attacks

When Administrations Lie, Thousands Die.

That is today's history lesson on the date of a controversial "attack" on the U.S. Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin off the cost of North Vietnam. That attack led to the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution a few days later and America's deepening involvement in the war in Vietnam.

Since the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and Vietnam War might as well be the Punic Wars to some people, here is a quick refresher.

America was already twenty years into its Vietnam commitment when Lyndon Johnson and Kennedy's "best and brightest" holdovers sought an incident to pull American firepower into the war with at least a glimmer of legitimacy. It came in August 1964 with two brief encounters in the Gulf of Tonkin, the waters off the coast of North Vietnam. On August 2, 1964 two American destroyers engaged three North Vietnamese torpedo boats, resulting in one of the torpedo boat's sinking. American claims that the North Vietnamese fired first were later disputed. On August 4, 1964, the American destroyers reported a second engagement with North Vietnamese boats. There was never any confirmation that either ship had actually been attacked. (Weeks after this the late Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who died in 2009, expressed to Johnson doubts that the attack had occurred.) But these faulty reports would be exploited as a convenient excuse for the massive escalation of America's involvement in Vietnam.

In the civil war that was raging between North and South since the French withdrawal from Indochina and the partition of Vietnam in 1954, the United States had committed money, material, advice, and, by the end of 1963, some 15,000 military advisers in support of the anti-Communist Saigon government. The American CIA was also in the thick of things, having helped foster the coup that toppled prime minister Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963 and then acting surprised when Diem was executed by the army officers who overthrew him.

Among the other "advice" the United States provided to its South Vietnamese allies was to teach them commando tactics. In 1964, CIA trained guerrillas from the South began to attack the North for months in covert acts of sabotage. Code named Plan 34-A, these commando raids failed to undermine North Vietnam's military strength, so the mode of attack was shifted to hit-and-run operations by small torpedo boats. To support these assaults, the U.S. Navy posted warships in the Gulf of Tonkin, loaded with electronic eavesdropping equipment enabling them to monitor North Vietnamese military operations and provide intelligence to the South Vietnamese commandos.

According to Stanley Karnow's Vietnam: A History,

"Even Johnson privately expressed doubts only a few days after the second attack supposedly took place, confiding to an aide, 'Hell, those dumb stupid sailors were just shooting at flying fish.'"

Without waiting for a review of the situation, he ordered an air strike against North Vietnam in "retaliation" for the "attacks" on the U.S. ships. One bitter result of these air raids was the capture of downed pilot Everett Alvarez, Jr., the first American POW of the Vietnam War. He would remain in Hanoi prisons for eight years.

President Johnson followed up the air strike by calling for passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. This proposal gave the President the authority to "take all necessary measures" to repel attacks against U.S. forces and to "prevent further aggression."

On August 7, 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed the House unanimously after only forty minutes of debate. In the Senate, there were only two voices in opposition.

Congress, which alone possesses the constitutional authority to declare war, had handed that power over to a man who was not a bit reluctant to use it. One of the senators who voted against the Tonkin Resolution, Oregon's Wayne Morse, later said,

"I believe that history will record that we have made a great mistake in subverting and circumventing the Constitution." After the vote, Walt Rostow, an adviser to Lyndon Johnson, remarked, "We don't know what happened, but it had the desired result."

 

The recent debate over Presidential powers to commit troops without Congressional approval, as in the NATO action against Libya, is a reminder of the ways in which Presidents have taken the nation to war. It is also a reminder that those monumental decisions are sometimes  base on lies or shadowy misinformation. In the case of Tonkin, the "official version" was elevated to an attack on Americans.

You can read more about the Tonkin incident and the Vietnam War in Don't Know Much About History: Anniversary Edition, from which this post is adapted.

Don't Know Much About@ History: Anniversary Edition

Here is an older post with some suggested readings about the Vietnam War era.

These links are related to the Gulf of Tonkin incident and recently declassified National Security Administration documents:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/index.htm

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/press20051201.htm

CNN.com: "Why US is Not a Christian Nation"

As America celebrates its birthday on July 4, the timeless words of Thomas Jefferson will surely be invoked to remind us of our founding ideals — that "All men are created equal" and are "endowed by their Creator" with the right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." These phrases, a cherished part of our history, have rightly been called "American Scripture."

But Jefferson penned another phrase, arguably his most famous after those from the Declaration of Independence. These far more contentious words — "a wall of separation between church and state" — lie at the heart of the ongoing debate between those who see America as a "Christian Nation" and those who see it as a secular republic, a debate that is hotter than a Washington Fourth of July.

Read the rest of the article here.

When Religions Collide

The Bible Riots

 

In a column written for CNN.com entitled "Why U.S. is Not a Christian Nation" that appeared on July 4th, I wrote about the history of early America as a secular republic.

Today, a few days after marking Independence Day and celebrating the events of 1776 in Philadelphia, I want to highlight a piece of "America's Hidden History" that underscores the dangers of an "official" religion and the irony of calling America a "Christian Nation."  The story is of a time when Christian sectarian violence led to bloodshed in the streets of Philadelphia.

Starting in n May 1844 and then again for several days following the 1844 Independence Day Parade, Philadelphia –the City of Brotherly Love– was torn apart by a series of deadly riots. Known as the "Bible Riots," the bloody street fighting and violence grew out of the vicious anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiment that was so widespread in 19th century America. Families were burned out of their homes. Churches were destroyed. And more than two dozen people died in one of the worst urban riots in early American History. This video offer an overview of the "Bible Riots."

The story of the "Bible Riots" is another untold tale that I explore in greater in A NATION RISING, now available in paperback.

A NATION RISING -National Bestseller now in paperback

Historical Libraries, Societies and Museums: "Beam me IN!"

"BEAM ME IN, SCOTTY!"



Apologies to Captain Kirk and Star Trek. I know it's really, "Beam me UP, Scotty."



For more than 20 years, I have been traveling the country, visiting museums, historical societies, bookstores, libraries and teacher conferences to share my love for history, geography and all the subjects I have covered in the Don't Know Much About series of books and audios for children and adults.



Along the way, I have spoken at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the New-York Historical Society and the American Museum of Natural History in New York, among other venues, sharing my love for history, writing and books. One of my messages is to encourage families to get out and visit historical sites such as Gettysburg, Fort Ticonderoga and other places where history happened. These places were so important to me as a boy, when my love for American History was shaped during family camping trips.



Now, with the power of computers, I want to visit your museum or historical society virtually. Will you invite me?



In fall 2011 and spring 2012, I will make a limited number of FREE Skype visits to select museums and historical societies to discuss American history.



In 60-minute sessions, I will give a brief talk about why we don't know our history, what we need to know, and why it matters. And I will also answer questions from your patrons.



If you and your patrons would like to participate, please make your request here, on the CONTACT PAGE of this website.



In your request, please propose a time when such a Skype visit would work for you and your patrons, planning out into Fall 2011 or Spring 2012 if such long-rang planning is needed to gather your audience.



Space is limited! Please enter your request by August 30, 2011



Meanwhile, I invite you to have a look at the revised, expanded and updated version of my book, Don't Know Much About History: Anniversary Edition, which was recently published in hardcover by HarperCollins, You can learn more about this new edition on this website.



I look forward to beaming into your museum or historical society and having a conversation with your patrons and members.



Best wishes,



Kenneth C. Davis

www.twitter.com/kennethcdavis

 

Don't Know Much About History -21 Years, Still Going Strong!

My how time flies!

When Don't Know Much About History was first published in 1990, it was simply meant to serve as a fresh new take on American history. Busting myths, with a dose of humor and real stories about real people, the book was conceived as an antidote to the dull, dreary textbooks we suffered through in high school or college.



A year later, on July 4, 1991, I learned that the book was on the New York Times paperback bestseller list, where it remained for a run of thirty-five consecutive weeks  – perhaps proving that Americans don't hate history, they just hate the dull version they got back in high school. There wasn't much advertising, splashy publicity or a "famous author." But teachers, students, booksellers, librarians, radio hosts and readers across the country embraced this offbeat, irreverent and quirky approach to history that asks simple questions like, "What is the Mayflower Compact?" as well as odd questions like, "Why is there a Statue of Benedict Arnold's Boot?"

The book went on to sell more than a million copies, and spawned a series of Don't Know Much About books. In 2002, Don't Know Much About History was revised and greatly expanded. Now, after a remarkable decade in American history, there is a newly updated edition –DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY: ANNIVERSARY EDITION– that picks up where that earlier revision left off and brings American history through a churning period of war, calamity, and dramatic upheaval that culminated with the historic 2008 election of Barack Obama and his first year and a half in office.



So what's different about this new version? Like the original book and the previous revision, this 20th Anniversary Edition is organized along chronological lines, moving from America's "discovery" by Europeans to more recent events, including the first Gulf War, the end of the Cold War, the enormous repercussions of September 11, 2001,and the election of the nation's first African-American president.



The book's final chapter has been significantly expanded to include a review of the extraordinary events that have taken place since 2001, a period that has produced some of the most remarkable changes in America's history.



Much of this new history reflects on the response of the United States to the calamity of 9/11 and how that day has transformed American life and society, from the way we get through airports to fundamental American attitudes about the right to privacy versus a sense of greater security. The new material begins with an overview of 9/11 and what has been learned about that "day of infamy" after nearly a decade. This revision goes on to recap the response of the Bush administration to 9/11, with particular emphasis on the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition, this added material includes discussions of these events and controversies:



• The emergence of same-sex marriage as a highly divisive, emotional national issue

• The failure of government at every level in responding to Hurricane Katrina, America's worst natural disaster

• The meltdown of the global economy and the "Great Recession" and the historic involvement of the government in rescuing companies, such as General Motors and Citibank, deemed "too big to fail"

• The surprisingly meteoric rise and election of Barack Obama and the first years of his administration



Besides adding material to cover events that have occurred since this book originally appeared in 1990, I have amplified some of the existing material. This sort of "historical revision" is a necessity because we learn things about the past all the time, often based on new scholarship, scientific advances, and ongoing discoveries that reshape our view of history. For instance, new light has been cast on familiar stories, such as the continuing archaeological dig that is revealing new information about the original fort at Jamestown, Virginia—first discovered in 1996—or the DNA evidence that strongly suggests that Thomas Jefferson had fathered the children of slave Sally Hemings— a nineteenth-century political rumor now treated as near certainty, even at Monticello, Jefferson's home in Virginia.



This revision also reflects the fact that court decisions can greatly alter American life. A bevy of judicial decisions around the nation during the past eight years has forced a major debate on same-sex marriage as well as the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward homosexuals serving in the military. And in June 2008, the majority on an increasingly conservative Supreme Court struck down a Washington, D.C., ban on handguns in a historic reinterpretation of the Second Amendment and "the right to bear arms" that may impact gun-control laws in most American states.

Finally, history needs to be revised because even "old dog" historians learn new tricks. For instance, in researching and writing two of my recent books, America's Hidden History and A Nation Rising, I uncovered some surprising "hidden history" in such stories as the fate of the true first Pilgrims—French Huguenots who settled in Florida fifty years before the Mayflower sailed and were wiped out by the Spanish in 1565. Or the story of Philadelphia's anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant "Bible Riots" of 1844, another episode missing from most American schoolbooks. This revision now reflects these significant but overlooked events.



When I last revised this book in 2002, I concluded by writing:

And yet, how much had really changed? Congress still fights over obscure bills. Children still go missing. The stock market's gyrations transfix the nation. But something fundamental seems to have changed. Historians may look back at America in late 2002 as the Era of Broken Trust. In a very short space of time, Americans had lost faith in government agencies, including the FBI and the CIA. The church, in particular the Roman Catholic Church, was devastated by a string of revelations about predatory priests. Corporate bankruptcies and revelations of corruption involving Enron, Tyco, Global Crossing, and WorldCom, among others, shattered America's faith in the financial security of the nation.

As we know, that paragraph has become, if anything, even more salient in 2011. The "Era of Broken Trust" I described at the beginning of the twenty-first century has only worsened as the events of the past decade have further eroded many Americans' belief and confidence in the nation's most basic institutions.



Perhaps the best summary of what this period in our history may mean is captured in something President George Bush told Good Morning America on September 1, 2005, during the Katrina catastrophe:

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

Of course, that was not true, as ample evidence has shown. There had been plenty of cautions about the levees from the public officials, engineers, and academics who had warned of the dangers confronting New Orleans as its protective barrier islands were eliminated by development and the levees ringing a city below sea level were deemed insufficient in the face of a major storm. Similarly, many danger signs had been posted about a raft of other protective "levees" that have also been breached—the risks to the financial system, or the concerns about offshore drilling, and the dire warnings about going into Iraq without justification and without proper troop levels.



The Don't Know Much About series has always been about asking questions and getting honest, accurate answers. If there is any overarching lesson to be learned from history—especially from this recent history—is that we all have to ask a lot more questions, especially when it comes to making sure the levees will hold.



So thanks to you for twenty years of reading and asking questions.

THE NEWLY REVISED HARDCOVER EDITION (HARPERCOLLINS)

THE ORIGINAL AVON PAPERBACK EDITION (1991)