I n spring of 2006, the Florida state legislature, in a virtually unprecedented step, chose to make how U.S. history is taught a matter of public policy. The Florida omnibus bill contained the sentence, American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed, shall be viewed as knowable, teachable, and testable, and shall be defined as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence. (Florida House of Representatives, 2006, p. 44.) Apparently, protecting the hallowed ground of the nation-building story of American history from threatening forces prompted state policymakers to legislate its protection. Such a move provoked yet another in a decades-old raft of reactions, accusations, and criticisms from across the political spectrum. 1 Why all the fuss, a reasonable observer might ask, and to what end? This, of course, is itself a historical question. And of course, an answer would beg a response that includes a multitude of causes. In this review, I attempt to address the question in a series of broad but also specific strokes. I begin by suggesting that in the United States, for example, late 20th century immigration patterns have been perceived by some who consider themselves American natives because they were born in the country (even though their ancestors are of European stock) as threatening to soften the glue that preserves their vision of the right and true American culture. In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that there were approximately 34.3 million foreign-born persons (largely from Mexico) living in a country of 300 million people, or about 11.4% of the U.S. population. Contrast that with 1967, when there were 200 million people in the United States, of whom only 4.8% (9.7 million) were foreign born (largely from Italy). Recently, the idea about erecting a giant wall along the U.S.-Mexico border-ostensibly