Poor Columbus! He is a minor character now, a walk-on in the middle of American History. Even those books that have not replaced his picture with a Mayan temple or an Iroquois mask do not credit him with discovering America—even for the Europeans. The Vikings, they say, preceded him to the New World, and after that the Europeans, having lost or forgotten their maps, simply neglected to cross the ocean again for five hundred years. Columbus is far from being the only personage to have suffered from time and revision. Captain John Smith, Daniel Boone, and Wild Bill Hickok—the great self-promoters of American history— have all but disappeared, taking with them a good deal of the romance of the American frontier. General Custer has given way to Chief Crazy Horse; General Eisenhower no longer liberates Europe single-handedly; and, indeed, most generals, even to Washington and Lee, have faded away, as old soldiers do, giving place to social reformers such as William Lloyd Garrison and Jacob Riis.
可怜的哥伦布！他如今成了个小角色，不过是美国历史里一个跑龙套的。即使有些书没有把他的画像替换成玛雅庙宇或易洛魁族面具，这些书也不认为是他发现了美洲，甚至不认为是欧洲人发现了美洲。书中认为在哥伦布之前，维京人就已经发现了“新世界”，只不过此后的欧洲人或许遗失了地图或忘记了这些地图的存在，在之后的500年中再没有想起来要穿越这片大洋。被时间遗忘和教材改写的远不止哥伦布一人。约翰·史密斯上校、丹尼尔·布恩，还有狂野比尔，这些曾在美国历史上熠熠生辉的人物如今都在教科书中难觅踪迹，随之而逝的是美国开拓边疆时期的种种传奇色彩。卡斯特将军让位于印第安首领狂马，艾森豪威尔将军也不再是那个只手解救欧洲的伟大人物。事实上，大部分将军的身影都在书中渐渐淡去，如同那些老兵的命运，纷纷被诸如威廉·劳埃德·加里森和雅各布·里斯之类的社会改革者们所取代，甚至连华盛顿和李将军都难逃此劫。
A number of black Americans have risen to prominence: not only George Washington Carver but Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr. W. E. B. Du Bois now invariably accompanies Booker T. Washington. In addition, there is a mystery man called Crispus Attucks. A fugitive slave about whom nothing seems to be known for certain except that he was a victim of the Boston massacre and thus became one of the first casualties of the American Revolution. Thaddeus Stevens has been reconstructed—his character changed, as it were, from black to white, from cruel and vindictive to persistent and sincere. As for Teddy Roosevelt, he now champions the issue of conservation instead of charging up San Juan Hill. No single President really stands out as a hero, but all Presidents—except certain unmentionables in the second half of the 19th century—seem to have done as well as could be expected, given difficult circumstances.
不少美国黑人成了历史名人：不仅是乔治·华盛顿·卡佛，还有弗雷德里克·道格拉斯和马丁·路德·金，W.E.B·杜·波伊斯和布克·T·华盛顿也总是相伴出现。此外，还有一位神秘人物克里斯珀斯·阿塔克斯，一位逃奴。关于他，人们只知道他死于波士顿大射杀，是美国独立战争的首批牺牲者之一，此外无任何确凿信息可知。泰迪尔斯·史 蒂文斯的形象则被完全颠覆——可以说性格大变，从反面角色变成了正面人物，从怀恨在心的残酷之人变成了满腔热忱的坚毅之人。而泰迪·罗斯福如今成了环境保护支持者，而不再是过去教科书中圣胡安战役的英雄。再没有一个总统被视为英雄，几乎所有的总统在各自所处的困境中都交出了令人民满意的政绩单——除了19世纪下半叶某些无法提及的总统。