It's sometime around the second magic trick, as the small, 60-year-old man with the mustache and belt buckle makes one of his own ragged business cards disappear, when any lingering anxiety I'm harboring subsides. This is not going to be a fight, of any sort, even if The Evergreen State College-trained liberal in me wants it to be.

Perhaps, if I had taken the time to study the ragged business card more carefully, the anxiety would have dissipated sooner.

Michael Allen - Wizard of Greasewood City: Magic, Music, Juggling, Tumbling and Snappy Patter 

It's hard to fight with Snappy Patter.

But Dr. Michael Allen is far more than a magician or the "Wizard of Greasewood City." Allen is many things, and this story has a lot to do with the ways in which people choose to see him. He's an American history professor at the University of Washington Tacoma. He's a Rainier beer fan who frequents Tacoma's Corner Bar, where he's known by name. He's a cowboy, a father, an unapologetic libertarian and a New York Times best-selling writer. He's an anti-intellectual intellectual, and a self-professed redneck.

And he's become a lightning rod, whether he likes it or not.

In 2004, shortly before George W. Bush's reelection, Allen and Dr. Larry Schweikart, a history professor at the University of Dayton in Ohio, published an 800-page work of political history, calling it A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror. The book is billed as a rebuttal to Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Zinn's quintessential work, which has become widely read and respected, is a political history published in 1980, monumental in the way it sheds light and new understanding on the story of our nation for the masses, and charts the formation of our country from a working class perspective. Zinn showed history from the eyes of those who were trampled, lost or purposefully forgotten - and it can legitimately be argued that the view of America's history presented by Zinn has been overwhelmingly embraced by liberals and most of academia. Zinn's work, at the time, was a rebuttal to the version of U.S. history that he and everyone else had grown up with - the unabashedly pro-America version recorded by those who'd benefited from it.

Schweikart and Allen's Patriot's History - big, heavy and red, white and blue, of course - took almost an equally radical approach to telling our nation's story, at least within the hallowed halls of academia.

They didn't apologize. And they had an agenda.

This was a patriot's history. Make no mistake. Its goal was to counter the liberal stronghold on U.S. history, and give scholars another - conservative - viewpoint to consider. Specializing in early American history, Allen wrote much of the first third of the book, and although there's a definite "patriotic" tone to his writing, a lot of it is hard to nitpick, even for a liberal. The latter portions of the book are almost wholly penned by Schweikart, the more prolific writer, and it's here - within the shamelessly biased recollection of recent history - where most of the book's detractors are born.

Over the course of five years A Patriot's History sold about as well as you'd expect an 800-page history book with an agenda might, moving 50 or 60 thousand copies. A few homeschoolers caught wind of it, the hardcore Limbaugh crowd used it as a stocking stuffer, and a handful of AP high school courses started drawing from it.

But that was about the extent of things.

Then Glenn Beck came around, and everything changed.

Perfect storm

In a small, cluttered and heavily decorated back corner of the UWT's Garretson Woodruff Pratt building, Allen's office occasionally catches the afternoon sun. Tiny particles of dust, visible only within the intermittent rays, float around among the office's treasures: stacks of books, random coffee mugs, a Davy Crockett hat, some magic props, an obscene amount of libertarian literature, a Barry Goldwater poster and an impressive retro beer can collection. In the corner, an archaic looking setup organizes the notes to Allen's next book, which will focus on the Mississippi River Valley - "LaSalle to Elvis" as he describes it. Above it hangs a large, faded picture of Allen juggling at the Ellensburg rodeo. His long hair and mustache make him look a little like a hippy in the picture, but we know better than that.

"He's the kind of guy that can really capitalize on something like this," Allen tells me of Schweikart, and the rocket-like rise to notoriety their work has seen since its mention on Beck's TV show earlier this year - launching A Patriot's History to a current streak of eight weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, including two weeks at number one.

"I'm working on a book right now that's not going to sell at all," Allen says of his Mississippi Valley project, with a knowing chuckle. "I talked to the publisher this morning. He just laughed at me."

Allen, a tenured, senior faculty member, has been a history professor at the University of Washington Tacoma for the last 20 years. He's a rebel of sorts. He and Schweikart both are. They're conservatives in the ultra-liberal Ivory Tower of academia. Allen is a "pro-war" libertarian, or Ron Paul Republican - depending on how hopeful he's feeling at the moment. Schweikart is a right-wing religious conservative - the type of guy I'm tempted to call a nut. In the world of higher education, these viewpoints alone make Allen and Schweikart extreme rarities, if not complete outcasts.

It also makes Glenn Beck love them. His minions have shown that love by rushing to Borders and shelling out $25 a pop for A Patriot's History in staggering numbers, no doubt urged on by the praise that now adorns the cover.

"This book has taught me more about our history than any I've read in years. A Patriot's History of the United States should be required reading for all Americans" - Glenn Beck

Allen recently had some long overdue dental work done thanks to Beck's endorsement, and in September he plans to "pay off the truck."

As the story goes, Schweikart, who also knows economics, made an appearance on Beck's program, and surreptitiously handed the host a copy of a Patriot's History on his way out after taping. Two days later, Beck called him back - in love with the book.

One might be tempted to ask how Glenn Beck read an 800-page political history book in two days, but I'm not sure it matters. The money is already in the bank.

The backlash

Then there's the other side of the spectrum. In this increasingly divided world we live in - where we run in dogmatic packs, with television stations, newspapers and Internet sites that feed us the viewpoints we already know we want to hear - a book like A Patriot's History almost uniformly gives conservatives a boner and makes liberals throw up in their mouths, even without reading it. The mere usage of "patriot" in the title - in a sad sign of the times - reveals the book's intended market. This is a history book for conservatives. Conservatives are patriots, right? Liberals are not. This is the implication and it's not even subtle. A Patriot's History was even published by Sentinel, a conservative publishing imprint within Penguin.

The book's conservative bent, from celebrating Columbus "the Indian killer" to lambasting the "genius" Bill Clinton, makes a lot of liberals despise Allen and Schweikart.

Passages like this, taken from the latter, recent history portion of the book, don't help.

On Abu Ghraib and Gitmo:

Widespread photos of "torture" often reflected injuries that the prisoners had arrived with; and the "abuse" for which Lynndie England and Charles Graner were charged included threatening the prisoners with dogs (which did not attack), making prisoners simulate sex with each other, and putting prisoners on dog leashes. Although the United States had moved to address the abuse, and publicly made apologetic statements, the message sent to terrorists - especially of Arab "shame/honor" cultures - was chilling: American women are dominating your finest fighters. Attacks and violent incidents dropped after the photos were widely aired.

On Bush and the Axis of Evil:

Iraq was a demonstration of the "western way of war" at its pinnacle - or what one Middle Eastern commentator glumly labeled an example of "Mesopotamians show and tell."... Within a period of two years, Bush had effectively cleaned out two major terrorist harbors, neutralized a third, and prompted internal democratic change in Saudi Arabia

"After people meet me or have my class, they usually think I'm a little crazy, but a pretty good guy. But people that don't, they make assumption. We get hate mail. We get flamed," says Allen. "I'm just not used to it. It's a pretty sobering experience."

"I still essentially agree with the interpretation of the last third of the book, but I think that any time a historian gets into writing about things that have happened in the last 30 or 40 years it's problematic, and I think that's probably what you see in the last few chapters of the Patriot's History. We don't know yet.

"I think the criticism is that the book comes from a partisan point of view that came out of that particular point in time. I understand that criticism. ... I'm sure Larry is dissatisfied with a few things I've done, but it's just a huge accomplishment and I'm glad to be a part of it. I think we've really changed something - for the better.

"I must say, there's a lot of it I agree with completely."

"There's a lot of hate out there. And there's a lot of gross overgeneralizations that go along side with being endorsed by Glenn Beck, Allen continues. "(Beck is) an entertainer. To treat it that seriously is - I think - a mistake. Glenn Beck has endorsed what we've written. I haven't endorsed Glenn Beck."

This is what happens when you write a "rebuttal" to Zinn, paint it red, white, and blue - and call it a "patriot's" history. In a society critically divided, it's an effort that smacks of extreme partisanship. We've reached a point where liberals and conservatives aren't even bound by the same history - we can each have our own versions. The truth, facts - they all become malleable, interpreted differently depending on which lens you use to view world. This has always been the case, of course, but when the conversation gets reduced to two, vapid, misinformed and stereotypical viewpoints, it feels troubling. It's black or white, right or wrong, and all the gray areas get rubbed out. Pick a side, fucker.

And so the societal divide between us would seem to widen. ...

But why?

Synthesis

Allen, divorced with three children, two of them libertarians "by the grace of god," has an apartment on North K Street, but comes from Ellensburg - and it's obvious. The mustache and belt buckle are not for show. Allen's father worked long hours running a restaurant when he was growing up, leading Allen to choose a profession - academia - that would require fewer hours and allow more freedom. Allen describes his mom as a hardworking Jewish democrat. Neither of his parents was college-educated during his youth, though his mom did eventually achieve a college degree.

"I think my dad was a libertarian, but he probably didn't know it," says Allen. "I've got this right wing/left wing background. Libertarianism, in a way, is a compromise of those far left and far right positions. It's so far to the right there's just an inkling of left there. It's Henry David Thoreau land.

Allen used to be more of a libertarian than he is today; as he's aged, he says, some of his fire has cooled. He's grown to stomach welfare for the old and young, and he's well aware of the irony of his job - an anti-tax, anti government regulation cowboy drawing a paycheck from a state-subsidized university. It's one of the beauties of our country, he says.

"I think probably you and I would agree on most social things. I don't care who has sex with who, how they do it, what gender they are, or what they smoke while they do it - as long as I don't have to pay their medical bills," Allen tells me the first time we meet. "Libertarians are republicans that smoke pot."

Though, on plenty of levels, I disagree with Allen's politics, the hours I spend in his office reveal at least one, very important fact - people aren't as different as we might like to pretend. Allen is a libertarian, meaning he doesn't think the government should interfere with the free market or tax us to fund social welfare programs - but sitting in his office, the liberal in me and the conservative in him actually manage to see eye to eye on a number of things. Even more astonishing, our dialogue is non-malicious. We don't always agree, but we do respect each other.

My time with Allen makes me wonder why this sort of interaction can't be achieved on a grand scale, and why - as a society - we seem destined instead, to name-call, titty-twist, argue about fictional death panels and rely on the stereotypes we've built of the "opposition" rather than making judgments on an individual basis. Maybe it's just easier this way, but I have my doubts. On more than one occasion Allen admits liberals have "the best intentions in the world," and on more than one occasion he proves to me he's far more than a cold-hearted libertarian. Why can't we have this realization on a national level? Why, instead, do we just seem destined to pointlessly cockfight - our democratic process the real victim of the pecks and scratches?

Perhaps we're just stuck with debilitating polarization, I wonder aloud. Allen - with historical perspective - talks me down from the ledge.

"As an early American historian, I'm absolutely amazed. I mean, Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton. Charles Sumner was caned within an inch of his life on the floor of the U.S. senate," says Allen. "That's what American politics is all about - is polarization.

"As a matter of fact, we most often reach synthesis through polarization."

Synthesis, he tells me, is one of the main points of the book. Zinn's work was a reaction to the previous, prevailing view of American history - and that viewpoint has taken over academia. Schweikart and Allen's work represents an effort to swing the pendulum in the other direction, to bring in another viewpoint.

The truth, as even Allen readily admits, is somewhere in the middle; between A Patriot's History and A People's History lives our history.

"That's where you find synthesis. It's like playing a fiddle," says Allen. "You stretch that string so tight in two directions that you can draw the bow across the string and make a beautiful sound - and that sound comes from the center."