“Miracles and Massacres” by Glenn Beck – The Hunt for Truth in History

Though in school most of us thought differently, history is about much more than remembering names, dates and facts. If recounted in the right way, history is basically the true story of humanity, the tale of what happened us and what led us to where we are.

Miracles and Massacres by Glenn Beck is basically an attempt to not only correct many of our erroneous beliefs about history, but also to present us with the story of humanity in an epic and entertaining way, or as much as that is possible at least.

Naturally, with an author like Glenn Beck, Miracles and Massacres doesn’t merely retell the events with the help of a narrative. Rather, Beck elects to look into specific events and periods in history, detailing not only what happened, when and how, but also the implications of such experiences for the people of today.

The book traces the roots of many of our modern beliefs and habits, explaining the underlying logic the laws and habits we have come to adopt over the centuries. Amongst other things we get to see why Thomas Edison was more of a thieving thug (at the expense of Nikolai Tesla) rather than a scientific genius, why the Battle of Wounded Knee was more akin to a massacre than anything else, why the infamous radio host “Tokyo Rose” was not a traitor but a hero, and much more.

Of course, as I mentioned it earlier, the goal of this book is to teach history in an entertaining way, one that makes it feel like a story read in a novel, and let me say, Beck manages to accomplish that with what feels like great ease and finesse.

You can at times forget that you are actually reading about real human history, though rest assured that everything here has been thoroughly researched for accuracy and veracity. From a technical perspective, this is one work of writing many authors could take example from.

Ultimately, I felt as if the main purpose of this book was to draw parallels with the state of America today. After exposing countless lies and half-truths that the children are taught in history courses at school, Beck seems to try and show us that our roots are not what we think they are, we are not really the people we think we are, and perhaps more importantly, the future of the country is not, in fact, going where we think it is.

Though there is certainly much room for argument with such ideas, they are presented in a convincing fashion and definitely deserve our attention.

With all being said and done, I believe that Miracles and Massacres is a must read for anyone interested in learning the historical truths that have eluded them and understand why we are who we are, or at least, what path took us here.

Even if you aren’t a history buff I believe you will still enjoy this due to the way in which it was penned, so unless you hate exploring the past, I’d suggest you give this book a try.

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Glenn Lee Beck Personal site Glenn Beck is known as a conservative (as in conservative political views) radio show host with his own program, and though he does express controversial opinions from time to time (it’s his job, after all), he can write some very interesting and eye-opening books, like Agenda 21 and Control for instance.