Skip to main content

Buried Alive

March 2023
1min read

Essays on Our Endangered Republic

by Walter Karp; Franklin Square Press; 279 pages.

Walter Karp died three years ago this July after a brief illness at the age of fifty-five. His passing deprived this magazine’s readers of a fine series called “A Heritage Preserved,” in which he illuminated the nation’s great museums through an examination of the personalities of the men and women who built them. It also deprived this nation of one of the most dedicated defenders of its liberties.

It is in this latter capacity that he wrote most of the essays in this anthology—although, like George Orwell, he felt that everything he wrote was in some sense political, speaking as he did always to the genius of the individual in society, to the interests of the people as opposed to those of the state. He expressed his views with a conviction that could leave one feeling tepid, waffling, and insincere by comparison; yet keeping company with Walter made you proud to be a citizen of this Republic.

Something of his ardor and his eloquence can be seen in the following passage from an essay called “Reflections (After Watergate) on History.” During those closely attended hearings, he felt, Americans were not “a mere audience watching political ‘theatre’” but “active participants in grave affairs of state.”

“Whenever that occurs,” he writes, “the concept of history as something that happens to men evaporates like fog.

“The ancient view of history … arose with Herodotus after the Greeks created the polis and discovered, in the new freedom of the city, that men were not by nature mere creatures of habit and circumstance. They could come together and freely act together and by their common actions make things happen that otherwise would never have happened. They discovered in the new experience of political freedom that history is the story of men acting. It was not some murky Babylonian scheme of universal and invariant cycles, a conception suited for barbarians who, enchained by immemorial custom and lacking experience of freedom and action, could well believe that history was the result of superhuman forces. The Greek discovery, the ancient view of history, has been almost eclipsed in our time. Yet it is always being rediscovered through the same experience that led to its original discovery—the experience of being citizens, of participating in great affairs, of sharing, through our love of truth and justice, in the making of historic events. At such times we regain something of the ancient public virtue and understanding, and grasp anew the brave, ancient truth that history is the story, endlessly ramified, of the diverse deeds of many men.”

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "July/August 1992"

Authored by: The Editors

Essays on Our Endangered Republic

Authored by: The Editors

A Collection of Favorite American Quotes, Poems, Songs, and Recipes

Authored by: Nathan Ward

August Sleigh Bells

Authored by: Nathan Ward

Other Fires

Authored by: Nathan Ward

Justice

Authored by: David McCullough

Thus did Franklin Roosevelt characterize the man who was to be his running mate in 1944 and—as everyone at the astonishing Democratic Convention knew—almost certainly the next President of the United States. Here is FDR at his most devious, Harry Truman at the pivot of his career, and the old party-boss system at its zenith.

Authored by: Thomas Fleming

The elder statesman sets the record straight on JFK, LBJ, Stalin, the bomb, Charles de Gaulle, Douglas MacArthur—and, most of all, the American Presidency

Authored by: Gene Smith

A reporter’s encounter with Harry Truman

Featured Articles

The world’s most prominent actress risked her career by standing up to one of Hollywood’s mega-studios, proving that behind the beauty was also a very savvy businesswoman. 

Rarely has the full story been told about how a famed botanist, a pioneering female journalist, and First Lady Helen Taft battled reluctant bureaucrats to bring Japanese cherry trees to Washington. 

Often thought to have been a weak president, Carter was strong-willed in doing what he thought was right, regardless of expediency or the political fallout.

Why have thousands of U.S. banks failed over the years? The answers are in our history and politics.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.