This essay is well thought-out and written well. I enjoyed hearing both sides of an argument use the same points for, or against, the case. I found the term presentism quite interesting and how people take present-day ideas and place them in the context of the past. I found agreement in both sides, because they presented their points well enough to persuade me to agree with them. I feel that the author didn’t exactly beat down a minor issue, because it created a key point for him.
     Presentism is taking ideas and values from today and looking at history with those ideas and values in mind. This can be a problem, because it adds to the ideas and values of the time and today’s ideas may have been out of sight in the past. With presentism you hurt the past by corrupting it with today’s corruption. We distort what was the original purpose to something with presentism and this can really do some damage on the past.
     My views on Thomas Jefferson haven’t changed at all from reading these essays. Seeing things from both sides took me to either side with Jefferson, but then eventually going back to how I felt about him before, as a contribution to society and as a great person. The essays added to my knowledge of him, but didn’t change my view of him in an impacting way.
     Wilson’s question is one that shouldn’t be given little thought. Good sides to revisionism are that we can look over people and get a better understanding about what they stood for, and who they are as a person. By going through and analyzing someone again creates new ideas about them and can add to their remembrance. The bad side is that looking deeper into someone’s past can bring out false ideas about them and create slander about a person. With the trend of stressing people’s faults, I see American heroes being broken down into American swine, and right now this nation doesn’t need that.
     Overall the essays were quite enjoyable and opened up new perspectives about looking at historical figures.