Saturday night, famed historian and former Kennedy administration official Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. accepted the Ruth Ratner Miller Award for Excellence in American History in Concord before an audience of approximately 200. Prior to accepting the honor, Schlesinger gave a speech about the past, present and future of the study of history.In his speech, Schlesinger first thanked the Concord Free Public Library for presenting him with the award. He said the library aids in "cherish(ing) the inheritance of the past and project(ing) vital life into the future."

Schlesinger spoke of the importance of retaining an accurate historical record. "History is to a nation as memory is to an individual," he said, adding that new conceptions of history, which emphasize race, class and gender can "blind us to our own bias."

"We acknowledge that historians, like everyone else, are prisoners of their own prejudices," he said. "The curse of racism has been the great failure of the American experiment and is still the crippling disease of American life."

Schlesinger added, however, that "militant multiculturalism," which states that ethnic divisions are the primary separations in American culture, disregards the idea of a common American culture. He said that, unfortunately, this often serves only to make students feel good about their own ancestors. "To deny the European origins of American civilization is to falsify history," Schlesinger added.

In his speech, he also critiqued the post-modernist academic movement that says history and fiction cannot be distinguished. "History is not an illusion, a fiction or a myth," he said. "The great strength of a free society is its capacity for reconstruction."

Following the speech, Schlesinger signed copies of his books. He said he is currently working on the sequel to his memoir "A Life in the Twentieth Century," as that book only covers his life through the 1950s. The work in progress is titled "Unfinished Business."