BRACE YOURSELF FOR A LONG TWILIGHT STRUGGLE.

I am not a fan of the so-called 1619 Project, and will continue to view with scorn the efforts of higher education to substitute its advocacy for serious intellectual inquiry. The good news is that Phillip W. Magness, whose efforts to fact-check the propaganda we noted recently, has provided a bibliography, in order that children of all ages might home-school themselves.

I make no specific endorsements of these materials beyond my own contributions to the debate, other than drawing attention to the arguments they contain as substantive avenues of engaging the topic. In compiling this list, I aimed to gather commentary on the project from across the political spectrum. The discussion following the project’s publication has since produced several detailed criticisms that delve deeply into the historical debates it raises over slavery and early American history.

Defenses of the project are noticeably more scarce. This is in no small part due to an unfortunate tendency of its supporters to attack the critics rather than the criticisms, with most of that taking place on insult-laden Twitter threads. Should a more substantive defense emerge at a future date, I will gladly add the link. However, efforts to fulfill this task to date have been both underwhelming and light on substantive engagement.

The bibliography in its present form includes a few general history sources so as to place the Times polemic in proper historical context.