‘GUIDE TO GOOD READING

‘Lost’ tacts of history that tell
true story of the Americas

JOHN HOWARD Lawson de-
serves the thanks pf his country
men for the studies in American

_ cultural history in his new work,

_ The Hidden Heritage. Instead,
this noted playwright and screen_
writer is now in a U.S. federal
‘prison, a victim of the modern
inquisition, kept behind bars be-
cause of this “heretical” belief
in democracy and the advance-
ment of man.

In The Hidden Heritage, Law-
son has brilliantly used the Marx-
ist method of historical -material-_
ism and his own creative gifts to
lift the fog which hag been laid
down over the history of our

hemisphere. In his preface, he
writes:

we 1
“I have been guided by the
Principle that the people are the

makers of their own history. I

_thave tried to find the roots of
culture in the life of the People,
in their struggle for subsistence,
in their battle against exploita-
tion and oppression. Yet there
is another aspect of the hidden

+ We cannot understand
the role of the people in history
unless we also understand the
historical illusions which mis-

_ ®epresent history in order to serve

the interests of privileged classes.

_ Thus, culture must be studial as
& weapon in the struggle of
classes.”

__ Lawson explains that American

history, as presented by bourgeois

writers, centers on the domin-
ance of the Anglo-Saxon, with
only the most cursory and re-
: references to the other
European strands woven into the
life of the Americas. It artificially
Severs South America from North
_ America, ignoring the fact that
both the history of the Indian
‘peoples before the European con_
Quest, the events of that conquest
itself, the subsequent liberation

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Sei E LUDMILA eee Re RT
= d

PAUL BUNYAN

struggles of the subjugated peo-
ples on both continents and the
development of capitalism itself,
all demonstrate the historical un-
ity of the hemisphere.
RoR ee ok
IT IS TRULY a hidden heritage
which Lawson attempts to re-
store. His work is a series of
Separate studies, essays. Some deal
with the rise of the bourgeoisie
throughout Europe and the con-
current movements of popular re_
bellion of peasant and urban
worker which sought an egali-
tarian society and reforms far
beyond the narrow and selfish
interests of the emerging middle
class.

Other chapters deal with the
resistance of the subjugated In_
dian and Negro of the New World,
and the manner in which aspects
of the cultures survived to be
introduced into the stream of
American culture despite the say-
age diligence with which the con-_
querors sought to stamp them
out. One section deals with the
British colonies during the per-
iod 1618-1628.

It is this manifold heritage of
the peoples of the Americas—
from continental Europe, Africa,
the Indians themselves as well
as from England—and the con-
tinuity of struggle for liberation,
from the peasant armies of Bo-

themia, the Jacquerie of France.

and the adherents of Wat Tyler
in London to the ‘slaves of His-
paniola, -Chile and the rebels
against the theocracy of New
England, which the author ex-
plores. 4

There is scarcely a page of The
Hidden Heritage which does not
sparkle with long-hidden treas-
ures of information on the rise
ef capitalism, the people’s move-
ments or ‘the conquest of the
Americas, or with illuminating
analyses which place long-familiar

Loggers’ Ball

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data in their correct historical
setting.

Notable individual chapters are
those .on “The Union Shop,” or
Bundschuh, “the revolutionary or-
ganization of German peasants,”
which conducted the struggle for
liberation that swept central Eur_
Ope in 1525; on Shakespeare and
the influence upon his work of
the decline of absolutism and the
ambivalence imposed on the in-
dividual, by bourgeois society, and
the chapter on the development
of the opera.

One of Lawson’s most interest
ing studies is that in which he
considers the historic hoax which
Save the New World the name

of the obscure and unsuccess_ -

ful merchant, Amerigo Vespucci.
Lawson suggests this “theft. of
credit” from the discoverer, Co-
lumbus, served a specific, impor-
tant purpose of the colonizers,
For the letters falsely attributed
to Vespucci described the Indians
‘as brutal, sensual, but docile to
the conquerors,

“The new land was called Amer-
ica instead of Columbia because
the fiction attributed to Vespucéi
was more serviceable to the bank-
ers than the confused reality re-
ported in the journals of Colum-
bus.” Thus, says Lawson, “the
truth was permanently corrupted.
The savagery of the conquest was
veiled. Attention was diverted to
the ‘savagery’ of the natives, to
their wanton sexuality, their prim-
itive rites, their inability to learn
the ways of their ‘masters.’ ”

In considering why the Euro-

pean conquerors blotted out the
culture and history of the peoples
they found +here—and brought
here from Africa—Lawson also
explains why the ultimate Anglo-
Saxon victors have obscured the
other national elements of Amer-
ican history:

“European and American
thought has placed an absolute
value on the conquest. In assum-
ing possession, the Europeans as-
sume that all that went before
was without form, and void: God’s
voice separated the light from
the darkness, and the history that
begins with the conquest is the
history of the conquerors, People
condemned to servitude or de-
struction can have no valid past,
no culture worth saving, no en-
during social achievements.”

* * *

Every page of The Hidden Heri-
tage conveys the justified excite-
ment of the author. Undoubtedly
that accounts for the fact that
a tremendous number of facts
spill over, that there are numerous
digressions, that the central
theme is frequently obscured in
the embarrassment of riches.

And while Lawson thoroughly
demonstrates the European multi-
national development of capital-
ism and the people’s movements,
and the true nature and purposes
of American colonization, the
actual merging of the New and
Old World cultura} patterns does
not emerge. Sometimes specula-
tion and conjecture escape the
historical discipline, or the im-
plied significance of facts is not
substantiated.

There are a dozen potential
full-length works within The Hid-
den Heritage. But it is far less
important to criticiz? the author
for not having excluded some ma-_
terial and enlarged on other for
the greater unity and coherence
of the present work, than it is
to recognize that his labors have

= opened up exciting new avenues

of historical exploration.

Lawson has magnificently suc.
ceeded in the purpose he sets
forth in his concluding paragraph:

“In‘order to reveal and possess _

our hidden heritage, we must re-
evalulate all the materials of his-
tory. This book will have served
its purpose if is suggests the po-
tentialities of such a re-evalua-
tion. ‘All history,’ as Engels said,
‘must be studied afresh.” ”—ROB-
ERT FRIEDMAN.

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GREAT EXPECTATIONS

A repeat of the earliest and
in some ways the best of Dickens’
adaptations by J. Arthur Rank.
From the dramatic, even shock->
ing opening, to the poetically sat-
isfying, typically Dickenisan con-
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THE ASPHALT JUNGLE

A gangster film notable for its
characterizations, and its expose
of circuit detectives. The hero-
villian (Sterling Hayden) is the
strong-arm mug’ selected by am-
bitious and cagey bank robbers
to handle the “juice” and cover
the getaway. The film makes an
attempt to explain how the gang-
ster got that way, and reveals
the tie-in of police agents and
the aristocracy of the underworld.

WOMAN ON PIER 13
Formerly called I Married A
Communist, Gutter sewage.

RIO GRANDE

John Ford, the once great di-
rector of The Informer, and
Grapes of Wrath, touches the
depths of corruption with this
vicious film against the Apache
Indians. Give it a wide berth.
THE UNDERWORLD STORY

A quickie assault on venal news-
paper publishing which might
have carried weight, but misses.
Excellent cast is not enough to
see it through. :

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