HI$TORY

Why, as a teenager in New Jersey in the 1980s, was Peter Sagal taught the Southern myth of the Civil War? How did Gone with the Wind became a national parable? Why is Robert E. Lee an American hero? Slaves = money = power.

The movies have taught us that the west was won by rugged individuals with a gun on one hip and a gal on the other. But those Americans who settled the west, those icons of freedom and independence, lived at the mercy of the railroad tycoons.

The Cold War was won not by weapons of war, but blue jeans, silk stockings, and fast food. Just follow the money.