Dominic Tierney: Close What Newt Gingrich and the History Channel Have in Common

Dominic Tierney is assistant professor of political science at Swarthmore College. He is the author of How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires, and the American Way of War.

The Republican candidate Newt Gingrich and the cable channel History have both followed the same formula for success, by elevating fantasy over actual history. The difference, however, is that Newt wants to carry his sensational vision of a bygone age into office.

Newt is the most prominent self-described "historian" in the United States. If he were elected in 2012, he would be only the second president after Woodrow Wilson to hold a PhD. Indeed, according to Newt, his gifts at decoding the past are so illustrious that Freddie Mac paid him $1.6 million, not for lobbying, but for his historical skills. Meanwhile, over on cable, the History Channel is rising in popularity with the mission statement, "History: Made Every Day." With practitioners and purveyors of the past soaring so high, these might seem like giddy times for the historical profession....

What motivates these peddlers of yesteryear is not history but fantasy. Newt's staple is the alternate history or the counterfactual. What if Robert E. Lee had won at Gettysburg in 1863? What if Hitler had not declared war on the United States in 1941? His other books include historical novels, as well as prophetic visions like "Winning the Future," which opens with the line, "In the twenty-first century, America could be destroyed."

On cable, History has followed in Newt's footsteps with a cocktail of conspiracy theories, counterfactuals, religious hokum, and science fiction. Many of its shows are entirely fictional, like "Ancient Aliens" and "The Bible Code," or summon future possibilities like "Armageddon" and "Life After People." The channel has a particular fascination with fortune telling, including "Seven Signs of the Apocalypse" and "Nostradamus 2012."...