January 2011

Last May,  American Heritage published a collection of assessments of who or what is under-and overvalued in fields that ranged from cars to presidents to movie stars. We drew on the goodwill of a great many people to do this, and thev came through nobly; the results exceeded our expectations. So did the responses they generated.

Roger J. Spiller chose as most overrated general Robert E. Lee, describing him as “a truly tragic figure, a man who by everyone’s agreement epitomized high character and soldierly honor but who also was a traitor to his country, a man of formidable military skill whose strategic and operational sense nevertheless was deeply flawed and who led his side from calamity to calamity.”

In 1992,  American Heritage asked various historians, artists, and writers to name their candidate for best historical novel. Several of them, including the writer Charles McCarry, the artist Edward Sorel, and myself, nominated Little Big Man, Thomas Berger’s masterly 1964 epic of the Old West. Little Big Man was composed of the ostensible oral memoirs of the centenarian Jack Crabb, former adopted Cheyenne warrior, frontiersman, scout, gunslinger, buffalo hunter, and, by his own account, lone white survivor of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

“CAN YOU THINK,” HOUSE & GAR - den inquired in September 1926, “of any room in the house which reflects the progress . . . of comfort and of convenience . . . more than the bathroom?”

Indeed. What room of the house incorporates modern notions of convenience quite so well as the bathroom? What one room so delineates the house of today from the house of old?

Yet in 1926 the bathroom was still far from universal. No one knows exactly how many there were, but even when the U.S. Census Bureau began tabulating such things in 1940, only a bit more than half of American homes (55 percent) had at least one complete private bathroom. By the mid-1990s bathrooms were very nearly universal, and long forgotten was the slow process by which the bathroom became an essential element of modern civilization.

Most Overrated Toy:

Most Overrated Spy:

A case could be made that the answer to both categories is Julius Rosenberg. As a spy for the Soviet Union he lasted only a short while and accomplished little of value. But as a martyr of the left who gladly died for his beliefs (he and his wife could have saved themselves by giving the authorities a full confession) he probably did more to legitimize the idea of virtuous treason than any American spy except that other hapless revolutionary Nathan Hale.

Most Overrated Western:

Since Westerns of the silent era are barely rated at all but uncritically treasured as precious artifacts, I have limited my choices to the talkies. Wesley Ruggles’s Cimarron (1931), with Irene Dunne and Richard Dix, was the only Western to win an Oscar for Best Picture until Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992). Except for a rousing Oklahoma land rush in the beginning, Cimarron is a soggy Edna Ferber family saga smothered in molasses and Dix’s hammy emoting. My runner-up overrated Western is Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon (1952), with its mannered, fussy performance by Gary Cooper and the pallid presence of Grace Kelly. Also, this is the favorite Western for people who hate Westerns.

Most Underrated Western:

Most Overrated Political Boss:

William Magear Tweed, the man so connected with the American urban machine that he alone bears the title “Boss.” Overrated? Sure. After all, how shrewd and powerful could he have been? First of all, he couldn’t get himself elected as New York’s sheriff in 1861. Secondly, not long after he took control of New York’s political machine, he got caught, went to prison, and died in disgrace. Many bosses who were more corrupt managed to avoid such a harsh fate, perhaps because, unlike Tweed, they made sure they controlled the prosecutors and the newspaper editors.

Most Overrated War Correspondent:

Most Overrated Traditional Dish:

Meat loaf. In my opinion it’s just a lazy man’s hamburger. It’s got the beef, but it lacks the sizzle. Americans gave the world great beef and then ruined it by grinding it, mixing it with a lot of absurd ingredients, and baking it dry. Real meat eaters want their stuff charred and juicy; this is just so much gray dust.

Most Underrated Traditional Dish:

The peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It’s the perfect American dish: sweet, salty, soft, chewy. It’s also infinitely portable. Relegating this wonderful invention to the school lunch is a terrible waste.