What Shall We Tell the Children? The Press Encounters Columbus

Abstract

NATIONS OUTGROW HEROES, the way children must learn to live without Santa. Lenin is being toppled in Russia. The Federal government removed Custer's name from his national park. It is now Christopher Columbus's turn at the chopping block. Journalists, editorial writers, and talk show hosts suddenly see in Columbus a hot prospect, now he has become controversial.This article looks at some of the opening skirmishes of this surprising Quincentenary year conflict over a hero, as presented in the press, with a special focus on how this conflict has become the bugbear of right-wing commentators. James Axtel, in 1987, sounded one of the first scholarly warnings all was not well with how events surrounding 1492 are presented in American history textbooks. His reading of the most popular college texts revealed gross distortions of the reality of the discovery. He advised school boards and teachers to stop adopting textbooks that are hopelessly outdated, stylistically painful, and cratered with crucial omissions.' The academic community was not prepared to make an adequate response to his critique. Perhaps too many specialists in America and Europe saw in the upcoming anniversary of the first Atlantic crossing an opportunity to gain funding for big projects such as getting the NuovaRaccolta Colombiana2 translated, producing a fresh twelve-volume collection of the major