Finished reading this just-published book of essays: David McCullough, History Matters (Simon & Shuster, 2025). Among many relevant observations and admonitions with present applicability, the late historian quotes John Adams from 1765:
"Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people who have the right to that knowledge and the desire to know. But besides this, they have the right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge–—I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers."
Ibid. at 94.
I condemn the current administration's repression of knowledge, science, and institutions of higher education. That includes stopping and impeding certain medical and scientific research and efforts to preclude the diffusion of knowledge about the history of slavery and mistreatment of black and brown people over the course of America's past. Despite cover-ups, diversions, and obfuscations, Americans—today as back then—have an absolute right, per the Founder, John Adams, to learn and acquire such knowledge as well as to see and understand "the character and conduct of" the Executive Branch's officials.
