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Michael Shermer speaks with Mary Grabar about her books Debunking the 1619 Project: Exposing the Plan to Divide America and Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation Against America.

According to the New York Times\\u2019s \\u201c1619 Project,\\u201d America was not founded in 1776, with a declaration of freedom and independence, but in 1619 with the introduction of African slavery into the New World. According to Mary Grabar, celebrated historians have debunked this, more than two hundred years of American literature disproves it, parents know it to be false, and yet it is being promoted across America as an integral part of grade school curricula and unquestionable orthodoxy on college campuses. This is a sequel, of a kind, to Grabar\\u2019s previous book Debunking Howard Zinn, whose A People\\u2019s History of the United States sold more than 2.5 million copies, is pushed by Hollywood celebrities, defended by university professors, and assigned in high school and college classrooms to teach students that American history is nothing more than a litany of oppression, slavery, and exploitation. According to Grabar, contra Zinn:

• Columbus was\\xa0not\\xa0a genocidal maniac, and was, in fact, a defender of Indians.
• American Indians were\\xa0not\\xa0feminist-communist sexual revolutionaries ahead of their time.
• The United States was founded to protect liberty,\\xa0not\\xa0white males\\u2019 ill-gotten wealth.
• Americans of the \\u201cGreatest Generation\\u201d were\\xa0not\\xa0the equivalent of Nazi war criminals.
• The Viet Cong were\\xa0not\\xa0well-meaning community leaders advocating for local self-rule.
• The Black Panthers were\\xa0not\\xa0civil rights leaders.