An interesting and rather infuriating reminder that ideas have consequences, and that there are vandals at large in academia. An important explanation for that link: Mark Grimsley is a leftist whom I am almost positive is an enthusiastic Obama supporter, and with whose contemporary politics I almost certainly will have massive disagreements on any number of questions. But he is an honest historian, and his description of Royster and Stout's Gramscian assault upon the necessary political myths which underpin American democratic consensus is pretty vein-popping.

Look, if you spend time explaining how vital a particular intellectual tradition is in making modern politics operational, and then proceed to plant rhetorical dynamite under that tradition and start waving a lit taper around the fuse, I can't help but think that you don't mean your country well.