There are two schools of American history Oneconservative nationalistic mythmakingcelebrates America as the city on the hill a land of liberty and escape from European tyranny The otherradical iconoclastic demythologizingviews the United States as the last global empire and laments its oppres

My mother in an unusually arch moment once proffered a solution to all the church-state debates about Christmas cr ches on public squares Take the clothes off the Wise Men she said That way they could get an arts award Jane Alexander former head of the National Endowment for the Arts likes w