Word: exalt
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Adams had the same prickliness as Give-'Em-Hell Harry, he's just not quite as colorful. From a family of Puritan farmers, Adams was honest and solid, but he could be argumentative, vain and despairing. In John Adams (Simon & Schuster; 751 pages; $35), McCullough does not try to exalt him. Instead he shows how Adams' ability to be sensible and independent made him an important element in the firmament of talents that created a new nation...
Creating a system of monetary reparations for slavery would damage America's public spirit. It would exalt the merits and benefits of digging through history for political or financial gain. Although the crimes of the past must always be remembered, an acute political interest in historical misdeeds usually accompanies and fuels the rise of divisive, sectarian politics--one remembers Slobodan Milosevic boosting his power by exploiting the 600-year anniversary of a Serb defeat. Rather than looking to the past to gain wisdom, such approaches rub the public's wounds with the salt of past misdeeds, breeding mutual antagonism...