Lynne Cheney sees the world in black and white. Or, rather, in red, white and blue. Or at least she would have young Americans see it that way. She begins this forty-page children's book with a textbook example of ethnocentrism:
I wrote this book because I want my grandchildren to understand how blessed we are. I want them to know they are part of a nation whose citizens enjoy liberty and opportunity such as have never been known before.
Of course, Lynne Cheney has not seriously contemplated the levels of "liberty and opportunity" in, say, the Netherlands or Canada today, or Choctaw society in 1600. She doesn't mean her declaration as a serious statement of comparative history--it's just nationalist cheerleading.
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