Historian Goodwin on July 4th: History Offers America Perspective and Hope

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Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin urged Americans to keep in perspective the nation’s problems.

Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview that aired Sunday, Goodwin said that no matter how troubled Americans see their country as being now, history can provide examples of times when it was as troubled or worse.

“History can give us perspective, it can give us solace. I really think it can give us hope,” Goodwin said.

She added: “Just imagine what it was like to live through the Civil War; more than 600,000 people were dead. Or live through the Great Depression; one out of four people out of work, the banking system collapsed. Or to live through the early days of World War II when it was unclear that Hitler might conquer the rest of the world. And the important thing to know is that in each one of those times, the people who lived then, they didn’t know the end of their story. They were like us. They were anxious. They were fearful.”

Goodwin, best known for her presidential biographies, appeared on a special episode of the long-running NBC news show focused on the nation’s 250th birthday, as did documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and Secretary of the Smithsonian Lonnie Bunch.

Like Goodwin, Burns — known for, among other things, his documentaries on the American Revolution, the Civil War and the Vietnam War — saw the need for looking at history.

“History is our best teacher, and it can be a helpful guide for everybody, no matter your disposition, political orientation, age, whatever it is. History can be an incredibly important way to digest the present and then figure out what your response is and — and to imagine a future together,” Burns said.

Burns said history proves that whatever divisions we are experiencing now, we’ve seen worse, including during the Revolutionary War itself.

“We are really divided,” he said, “but we were way more divided then, way more divided during the Civil War, way more divided during the Vietnam period. And so I see that division as sort of a mile wide but an inch thick.”

Like Goodwin, Bunch also spoke of hope.

“I think that’s one of the most powerful things about hope,” he told host Kristen Welker, “is that no matter the challenge, America has an opportunity to sort of come together, find hope, find common ground. At least that’s what I believe.”

Goodwin said whatever the issues, it is important for Americans to feel are part of something bigger than themselves.

“When I think about these movements for social justice,” she told Welker, “it always starts with individuals feeling that they can make a difference. That’s what the inauguration of John Kennedy was. That’s what the Civil Rights Movement was all about. I remember being at that March on Washington in August of 1963, when I was 20 years old — showing that I’m 83 years old today — and there was a sense in that feeling of being there that you were something larger than yourself.”