Quest for true American history: today's history textbooks indoctrinate America's youth in socialist propaganda. But quest of a hemisphere accurately portrays history while teaching Judeo-Christian values. (Brook Review).

Quest of a Hemisphere, by Donzella Cross Boyle, Appleton, Wis.: Robert Welch University Press, 2002 (originally published in 1970), 633 pages, hardcover, $24.95. (For ordering information, see the bottom of page 26.)

Of the many laudable traits found in the individuals who created the United States of America, two are most noteworthy. One was their goodness. In general, these remarkable men were God-fearing and did not seek personal wealth, power, or glory. They sought political and economic freedom in addition to an ability to practice religion as they believed. And they wanted freedom, not just for themselves, but for all who sought to escape the shackles imposed by rulers in the old world.

The second significant characteristic found in these extraordinary individuals was their knowledge of history. Having learned from the frequent mistakes and occasional successes of others, they knew that freedom's greatest enemy has always been too much government. So they constructed a system with the amount needed for maintaining both freedom and good order. The goodness and the wisdom of America's Founders led to creating the greatest experiment in human liberty. Theirs is a story that should always be celebrated, never distorted or suppressed. But the times in which we live are full of distortion and outright suppression of these men's deeds, of our remarkable nation's beginning, and of much of its history into the 20th century.

Approximately 50 years ago, Mrs. Donzella Cross Boyle concluded that the fundamentals making this nation the envy of mankind weren't being given to young Americans. Though not completely alone in her discovery, this remarkable lady did something about it. She began a labor of love resulting in a history book for junior high school students, one written to tell the unvarnished story about the people and events that shaped, not only this nation, but an entire hemisphere. Her text is crammed with facts and inspiration designed to keep alive the wisdom of America's Founders and to maintain the experiment they launched.

After completing the herculean task of writing the book, her next obstacle was to find a publisher. After repeated rejections, she realized that her work didn't appeal to the leaders of the educational community. Her dogged but unsuccessful pursuit revealed that socialists and liberals had largely gained control of America's textbook-publishing empire. The infuriating reasons the "experts" gave her for rejecting it convinced her even more of its need. So frustrating was her unfulfilled search that, nearing the brink of despair, she penned a small book entitled American History Was My Undoing. When it came to the attention of the leaders of The John Birch Society, her search ended and Quest of a Hemisphere was published in 1970 by Western Islands, a JBS publishing affiliate.

Parents who had already noted deficiencies in the educational establishment's approved works jumped at the chance to obtain the Boyle alternative for their youngsters. The popularity of Quest of a Hemisphere led to several printings and, as America's home-school population continues to swell, it has become one of the more sought-after history texts available in our nation. The latest printing of Quest was released earlier this year by Robert Welch University, named after the John Birch Society's founder.

Making History Come Alive

Not an ordinary text filled only with tedious dates and dry details, Quest employs the documents, diaries, letters, and statements produced by the individuals who discovered, colonized, and built America. Its 269 illustrations depict America's birth and development -- sketches, portraits, and reproductions from the various periods of our nation's history. In narrative style, unusual for a history text, Mrs. Boyle begins with Columbus' voyages, and then proceeds to the exploits of Cortez and Coronado, Pizzaro and Balboa, Diaz and da Gama, Cabral and Vespucci, Magellan and Hudson, all of whom contributed in some way to the eventual settling and taming of the Western Hemisphere.

Many of the early explorers had set sail from European ports in search of a westward route to the wealth of the Orient. Sailing up the river named for Hudson, down the St. Lawrence, along the eastern coasts of the new hemisphere, and into South America they went without success. But their voyages made them aware of the vast expanse of America's fertile fields and woodlands.

Soon, adventurous trappers and traders flocked to the North American coast. Seekers of religious freedom quickly followed. Mrs. Boyle relates that some of "the seeds of the American war for independence were sown" at a meeting of colonists held in Virginia in 1619 when the settlers demanded the right to veto laws given them by the monarchy's agent, the London Company. These settlers rejected the idea that the king ruled by divine right and believed instead that "the human rights of man are above the rights of government."

While telling of the Puritans who first fled England and then the Netherlands, she criticizes the experiment that united church and state in the early Massachusetts settlements. Mrs. Boyle writes: "Unfortunately, they brought over with them the system that had caused their persecution in their homeland." That system led Roger Williams to flee Massachusetts and begin the colony that became Rhode Island. In time, the Puritans discovered their error and an era of toleration ensued.

Though much attention in Quest is given to the desire for religious freedom among the early Americans, proper space is accorded the struggles for other God-given freedoms. This remarkable book relates the travail of publisher John Peter Zenger, arrested in New York for distributing government-banned material. At his trial in 1735, a youthful defense attorney named Alexander Hamilton told the jury, "The loss of liberty to a generous mind is worse than death.... The man who loves his country, prefers its liberty to all other considerations, well knowing that without liberty, life is a misery." Mrs. Boyle points out that Zenger's acquittal not only established freedom of the press in America but solidified the right to trial by jury.

From Wars to Independence

Spain had sent Columbus to the new world. Once his discoveries became known, it took little time for Britain and France to recognize opportunities for acquiring wealth in America. But the competition to dominate certain portions of North America (the Spaniards devoted most of their attention to Central and South America) led eventually to armed struggle. During the 1755-1763 French and Indian War -- in reality, a French versus British war in America -- various Indian tribes anxious to retain control of their lands sided with the French. Mrs. Boyle explains why: "The French trader visited, bought furs, and departed [but] the British plowed the land, planted a crop, built a house, moved in his family, and stayed." The Indians preferred those Europeans who would depart.

With a young officer named George Washington playing a role for the victorious British, this war demonstrated the need for unity among the English colonies. Mrs. Boyle notes that one result of this struggle saw them develop more confidence in their own abilities. She concludes, "The French and Indian War turned out to be dress rehearsal for a still greater conflict, the American War for Independence."

As far back as 1694, East India Company chairman Josiah Childs predicted problems for the British crown because of the "frugality, industry, temperance, and the happiness" of the people he dealt with in America. Mrs. Boyle reproduces a portion of a book written by Childs wherein he urged "severe laws" to force continued loyalty to the monarchy. And England did eventually respond, first with punitive Navigation Acts and then with the Writs of Assistance, the Stamp Act, and numerous other measures designed to bleed the colonists and keep them dependent on the mother country. Mrs. Boyle comments that one unintended result of these small bits of tyranny saw every house soon become "a little factory" producing locally the heavily taxed articles sent from Britain.

The book's chapters describing the War for Independence are inspiring. From the Boston Massacre, to Lexington and Concord, to Patrick Henry's history-making speech, to the Declaration of Independence, and on to Washington at Valley Forge and crossing the Delaware, the daring of American seamen, and finally to the surrender by Cornwallis in Virginia, the Boyle narrative -- accompanied by photos of period documents and individuals -- can't help but make any American proud and grateful.

Mrs. Boyle then discusses the succession of governments in America. From the Continental Congress and the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation, readers are taken on the journey toward the Constitution that began with the 1786 Annapolis Convention and a gathering sentiment for a new basic law.

Mrs. Boyle's admiration for the Constitution and its creators is boundless. Re-producing all of the Constitution's articles, she provides valuable commentary and explanations about most of its clauses. After detailing what had been produced and supplying short biographical sketches of many of its authors, she writes:

Fifty-five men! They were farmers, tradesmen, lawyers, ministers, physicians, planters, merchants, professors. All loved liberty. They were Baptists, Quakers, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Catholics, Methodists, Huguenots. None were atheists. They were rich and poor; old and young; humble and haughty; tall and short; handsome and homely. They were the Founding Fathers.

Nineteenth-century America

The War of 1812 is legitimately termed America's "Second War for Independence," a struggle she notes was won mostly in naval battles where freedom of the seas for our nation was established. Happily, she concludes, this war ended strife between the U.S. and Britain. But it didn't end problems for the infant nation. Revolutions in Spanish America and an influx of Russians into the northwest led to the proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine that Mrs. Boyle reports "was largely the work of John Quincy Adams," President Monroe's secretary of state. It boldly stated that the lands of the two American continents "are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by European powers."

During the early 1800s, references to the West meant Kentucky and Tennessee. But, after the Louisiana Purchase and the subsequent Lewis and Clark explorations, it meant the Great Northwest. Mrs. Boyle honors the missionaries who brought Christianity to the Indians, Marquette and Joliet, Father Pierre DeSmet, and Reverend and Mrs. Whitman. Her portrait of life in the wagon trains is priceless, including the Mormon trek to Utah and numerous other caravans that pushed west.

Readers are then given a stirring account of the conflict that led to independence and then statehood for Texas. The names of Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William Travis ought never to be bypassed in any American history text -- and they are not ignored here. A foretaste of the War Between the States occurred during the Jackson administration when southerners proposed the Nullification Doctrine holding that a state could nullify an act of Congress if a majority of its people so voted.

Recounting one of history's ironies, Mrs. Boyle tells the saga of Eli Whitney, the young inventor who had gone to the South as an opponent of slavery and, while there, invented the cotton gin. Costs associated with slavery had already made it unprofitable and it was beginning to die out. But Whitney's new machine enabled cotton production to increase dramatically. Suddenly, slavery became profitable again. She relates: "Thus it happened that a whittling boy who hated slavery chained the South to this system of labor...."

Struggles over slavery and whether newly admitted states would be either slave or free polarized much of the nation. Quest takes its reader on a journey through the Missouri Compromise, the WebsterCalhoun debates, the Dred Scott decision, and the beginning of the states rights/nationalism controversy culminating in the disastrous War Between the States. While Mrs. Boyle supplies many details about that war, she makes clear that it was fought more in defense of states rights than slavery. She writes:

Can a state secede? The War Between the States answered that question by force of arms. Yet, a hundred years later, citizens in all parts of the country were still debating the meaning of states rights under the Constitution. A military victory does not always change the minds of men.

Proper attention is the given to the injustices of the Reconstruction period, the failed impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, the valiant recovery of the South from years of harsh dominance by intruders, the eventual industrialization of the former Confederate states, and the rise of such remarkable Negro educators and scientists as Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver. In numerous ways, Mrs. Boyle overcomes distorted interpretations of America's history with her factual and unbiased accounts of the triumphs and tragedies of our ancestors.

Quest then recounts the building of the transcontinental railroad, the settling of the plains by homesteaders, the taming of several rivers, the discovery of oil in the Southwest, and the California gold rush. The freedom existing in America gave rise to unparalleled inventiveness. Mrs. Boyle chronicles the impact of Bell's telephone, Morse's telegraph, McCormick's reaper, Deere's plow, Goodyear's rubber, and the numerous advances given mankind by Westinghouse, Edison, Ford, and others.

A World Power

The Spanish-American War of 1898 began when the USS Maine was blown up in Havana harbor. Lasting less than a year, the war resulted in U.S. annexation of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines -- and almost immediate independence for Cuba. During this same period, the U.S. annexed the islands of Hawaii, which the Hawaiian people welcomed jubilantly. Mrs. Boyle supplies details about the negotiations and herculean efforts leading to constructing the canal through newly independent Panama.

World War I soon engulfed Europe. Although Mrs. Boyle recounts America's eventual participation in this war, she does not discuss the behind-the-scenes intrigues leading to America's abandonment of the praiseworthy policy of non-intervention. Quest mentions the rise of Lenin and the establishment of the Communist system. Mrs. Boyle correctly notes that World War I propelled the U.S. to "first place as the most powerful nation in the world." But she also notes that this immensely costly struggle created artificial nations such as Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, led to the imposition of severe retaliation against Germany that invited future trouble, and set the stage for the spread of the worldwide scourge of Communism. She discusses President Wilson's desire for a League of Nations, but, again, none of the intrigue associated with it appears.

Not written as an economic text, Quest barely touches on the Great Depression. But it does discuss the flood of new government agencies created by the Roosevelt administration as a supposed route out of the doldrums. Mrs. Boyle states: "Although more and more government bureaus were created to spend more and more money, the actual depression lingered on." She notes that, prior to the Roosevelt era, Americans paid "the largest sum of taxes to support their town, city and county governments; the next largest amount for their state: and the least to maintain the National Government." This pattern was "reversed," yet "the welfare program of the Government did not cure the depression." Only World War II and the accompanying huge expenditures pulled the nation out of its economic travails.

Mrs. Boyle accurately details the first stages of World War II, including the rise and early conquests of Nazi Germany and its short-lived alliance with the Soviet Union. But her book fails to mention the American people's resistance to enter into the war, the connivance of President Roosevelt to assure our entry, and the behind-the-scenes treachery that left our forces at Pearl Harbor unprepared for the devastating attack by the Japanese in 1941.

Nevertheless, Quest contains numerous descriptions of U.S. military exploits in both Europe and the Pacific leading to eventual victory on two fronts. In sadness, she reports: "Thus ended the world conflict that took the lives of more than 22,000,000 persons, wounded nearly 35,000,000 and cost the staggering sum estimated at more than $1000,000,000,000."

Mrs. Boyle then chronicles the birth of the United Nations and criticizes some of its injustices and deficiencies. Her final chapters dwell on the collapse of Europe's colonial empires in Africa and Asia, the spread of Communism, and the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Much has been learned about each of these topics since Mrs. Boyle put pen to paper and produced her book. That she doesn't include what is now well known -- at least by readers of THE NEW AMERICAN -- is unfortunate. But her book still stands head and shoulders above the many texts given to America's youngsters in our nation's government-run schools.

We should all be grateful that this valiant and extremely patriotic lady produced Quest of a Hemisphere.

Quest of a Hemisphere (633 pages, hardbound) is available for $24.95 (plus shipping) from American Opinion Book Services, P.O. Box 8040, Appleton, WI 54912; by phone at 920-749-3783; or online at http://www.aobs-store.com. A Quest of a Hemisphere Study Guide (77 pages, paperback) is available for $2.50 (plus shipping) from the same source. Add $7.50 for shipping for the book by itself or the book and study guide combined. (If ordering just the study guide, add $3.00 for shipping.)