Letters to the Editor
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Bill and Ted do history, Salon style
I know Salon is not supposed to be peer-reviewed journal material but good grief, making this book out to be some new kind of novel historical insight is just more evidence of the rapidly declining quality of this site. A guy who doesn't know history writing about a book by a guy who doesn't know history and, like Bill and Ted, think they've discovered some great notion. The worst part was when Bill and .. I mean Louis and Tony reveal that the "Indians they encountered were not the happy, dancing savages of New Age imaginings." Yes, Native history should only be viewed through white mans lenses; both ill-informed wannabe historians like Tony and Louis and New Agers. The facts are that millions of Indians lived in the Americas prior to Columbus and, yes, there was war and some starvation, but there was also cooperation, life-enhancing traditions and approaches to our interactions with the environment that we could learn and benefit from today. To portray millions of diverse peoples with long cultural traditions as a few thousand dung-eaters living under a despot is beyond ignorant and unfortunately reflective of the mindset of Tony and Ted, I mean Louis. Yet another disappointment from a Salon that is becoming a total embarrassment under Walsh.