[Author’s note: I had promised another reflection today on Lears’ Rebirth of a Nation. I’ll get to that. In the meantime, please accept another reflection, cross-posted from my personal blog, on another famous book. – TL] Upon viewing D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation for the first time, Woodrow Wilson purportedly said, “It is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so true.” Despite the fact that the statement has been repeated often enough such that it has obtained near canonical status, no primary evidence exists to corroborate Wilson’s alleged utterance. Even so, Read more