Dissenting Opinions - Selected Essays by Page Smith

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DISSENTING OPINIONS collects twenty-nineessays written between 1952 and 1983.
Whether writing on history and the histo-
rian, education in America, or such topics
as “Ford’s Pardon of Nixon” and “The Van-
ishing Gentleman,” Page Smith is a wry and
engaging iconoclast, a writer of great wit
and clarity.
“From Masses to Peoplehood” and “Anxi-
ety and Despair in American History” ex-
plore topics to which Mr. Smith has devoted
his lifelong work as a historian, and six addi-
tional historical essays further demonstrate
the range and depth of his interest and
knowledge. Next, essays such as “The Sins
of Higher Education” and “The Inhuman
Humanities” provide a critique from the in-
side of the fatal flaws of our educational sys-
tem and suggest radical improvements. Fi-
nally, in occasional essays ranging from
“Fidelity” to “The New Abolitionism,” Mr.
Smith exhibits a humane and vigorous ap-
proach to the problems of American society
today.
Mr. Smith’s “dissenting opinions” chal-
lenge us to confront what has gone awry in
the first two hundred years of American cul-
ture, as well as to laud and cherish what has
been unique and central to it. Readers al-
ready familiar with his work will delight in
the insights these essays provide, and those
reading him for the first time will discover a
distinctly American writer of great human-
ity, a writer who provides a focus on the
present available only to those who know
and appreciate the past.