HISTORY HIS WAY

I read with great interest the article on Simon Schama (“History’s Rewrite Man,” by Ivana Edwards, Feb. 9), having just read about half of his “Citizens: A History of the French Revolution.”

Schama may have a “compelling phrase style,” but that says more about the mundane nature of most history books than about any imagined style that Schama may have. His “Citizens” is blatantly biased, painting royalist and monarchist figures in France and England in a glowing, benevolent light, and revolutionaries in France and America in a snide, condescending manner. This thinly veneered, one-sided pap will never pass for scholarship.

DAVID HAMMERBECK

Los Angeles