| Last week’s curation at RealClear’s American Civics portal focuses on Wilfred M. McClay’s review in First Things of David Hackett Fischer’s recently released book, “African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals.” Calling it “one of the most important works of history published in the past twenty-five years,” McClay writes that Fischer’s “magnificent and deeply researched new book” should serve as the “starting point for any reflection on the enduring African influence on the formation of American national ideals.” High praise indeed coming from McClay. Fischer presents the “history of Africans in America” not “as a sidebar to the general history of America” but instead as “part of things all along, making contributions of inestimable value, including challenges to the nation’s conscience,” McClay notes. He contrasts Fischer’s work to the New York Times’s 1619 Project, which he calls “a journalistic stunt” that “mangled key elements in the history of North American slavery in order to serve a political agenda.” According to McClay, Fischer’s newest work “gives us neither fatalism nor triumphalism, but reasons for hope, grounded in a meticulous study of the actual historical record—hope that our free institutions can continue to flourish, and continue to expand the embrace of our ideals.” The book is especially valuable, in McClay’s view, because “it does what the best historical writing always does: It lifts us out of the preoccupations of the moment, and gives us wider horizons and longer perspectives." He concludes: “It is a book for this moment, precisely because it was not prepared with this moment in mind. Its effects will be felt for many years to come, once the terrible simplifications of the present day have begun to weaken their hold, as surely they will.” In the News Anthony Sanders, Reason Gage Klipper, Law & Liberty Bradley Birzer & Miles Smith, National Review Robert Weissberg, Minding the Campus Nicholas Goldberg, LA Times Christine Rousselle, Fox News Wilfred M. McClay, First Things Tyler O'Neil, Daily Signal Josh Blackman, Reason We the People In this special episode of <em>We the People</em>, host Jeffrey Rosen sits down with Khan Academy founder... Carl Cannon's Great American Stories It's Friday, May 19, the day of the week when I reprise quotations intended to be uplifting or educational. Today ... In August 1950, President Truman presided over a post-war America that was growing increasingly alarmed over the spread of Communism. ... On this date in 2012, political observers awoke to news of election returns in the Midwest that challenged the conventional ... | 