Miracles and Massacres: True and Untold Stories of the Making of America by Glenn BeckMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I see Beck getting knocked about it for his novelization of history here - imagined conversations, characters, and events, etc. Really, this is just presenting to the public at an 8th Grade reading level some jazzy rendition of past events - not unlike a popular movie "based on actual events." Beck backs up his tales with a long list of books, online sources, magazine articles, encyclopedias, etc. He comes clean in the end notes on everywhere he colored outside the lines, especially where we want pretty far off reservation like his imagined actors in the My Lai telling. I don't really get any right-wing preaching here - this seems like a history buff acting out his favorite stories, even when they are America certainly not at its best. This includes covering Shay's Rebellion, The Barbary War against African Arab pirates, Wounded Knee, the mystery of Tokyo Rose, 9/11, and among the history lessons he taught me: vets against the man in the Battle of Athens, TN (1946).
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