Many Americans have never owned a book, and I'm not talking about because of the recent digital revolution. I'm talking about before there even was a digital revolution.

The layout of textbooks, I think, has been done with an assumption that students don't read.

What gets lost in the textbook is the overall narrative. It gets lost in all the boxes and all the photos and all the little stuff that's stuck in all the time.

Many Americans have never owned a book. And others have never owned a non-fiction book. Providing them with a 300-page paperback would get them started, maybe. And even if it didn't, at least they'd own that one. So that's a serious problem.

Students will start finding history interesting when their teachers and textbooks stop lying to them.

Conclusions are not always pleasant.

History can be a weapon, and it can be used against you.