"They set a high example, and we have much to learn from them. Much recent historical writing has served us ill ill in that respect. In the late twentieth century, too many scholars tried to make the American past into a record of crime and folly. Too many writers have told us that we are captives of our darker selves and helpless victims of our history. It isn't so, and never was. The story of Washington's Crossing tells us that Americans in an earlier generation were capable of acting in a higher spirit—and so are we."
David Hackett Fischer, Washington's crossing, Pivotal moments in American history (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 379.
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