Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, Revised and Updated Edition by James W. Loewen Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, Revised and Updated Edition
Book Review: Fascinating, well researched, and well written
Summary: 5 Stars
Loewen's book is good at not only giving a mini-history education in and of itself, but in pointing out the reasons WHY history is taught so poorly and not enjoyed by most students. He has thoroughly footnoted his chapters and carefully addressed the inaccuracies/omitted episodes from high school history texts. This is an excellent book, receiving a 9 instead of a 10 only because he is occasionally a little impractical - preferring, for example, to think that children tell Helen Keller jokes to deflate a symbol too good to be true (rather than for the pure pleasure of telling cruel jokes) and believing America's Civil War was won with superior political ideology rather than gunpowder, supplies, and battles. (The title of his discussion on the Civil War ought to be "Fantasyland: An ivory tower view of war"). Remembering that NO history book is going to be written without some bias (even Loewen's), it is a pleasure to recommend this fine book for correction of errant historical perceptions and stimulation to learn more about American history.Book Review: Mr. Orwell goes to Washington
Summary: 5 Stars
American education is Orwellian, in a far more literal sense than the word is usually employed, according to this book. In "1984," the state realized that to control the language was to control the mind -- hence, words like "rebellion" vanished and phrases like "freedom is slavery" sprang up. This author points out how long and how efficiently such a process has gone on in American schools. Once you label John Brown "insane," you free schoolchildren from having to reflect upon what they share with him -- and perhaps what they should share with him. Once you make Helen Keller "inspirational," you insulate those children from having to confront her as irritating, dangerous and challenging. They will not have the historical vocabulary to think those thoughts -- or to wrestle with Abraham Lincoln, a man of his times, or assault the citadel of the soiled and sainted Christopher Columbus. Read Loewen's book to help yourself and your children begin your argument with the American experience. As the alternative bumper sticker says: "Question your OWN authority."Book Review: about time someone did this
Summary: 5 Stars
This teacher sat down with a pile of high school US history textbooks and compared them. He discovered what many of us knew already: they lied to us, and they are still lying to us.As most people in the US who graduated from high school will recall, the typical US history taught at that level is essentially a 'hurrah for us' cheerleading session. Loewen debunks this with frequent references to actual high school history texts as his support, and he makes it quite clear that what most students get is a sanitized version. His admonition to teach about 'ideas' as well as the events that resulted from them is well taken.
And for someone who (as one reviewer commented) is supposedly pushing his political agenda, he's very rough on Woodrow Wilson (as well he should be). I think his agenda is to make history more interesting and relevant to the student. Maybe if more history teachers were permitted to use texts like this one, we wouldn't always be listening to poll results that reveal that 80% of our high school students have no idea of the correct answer on almost any historical question.
Book Review: This Book is Political correctness run riot.
Summary: 2 Stars
Speaking as a History Teacher I want to commend Professor Loewen for pointing out the deficiencies which exsist in so many American History textbooks. In this regard He has definitely performed a service to American education. But ultimately this book falls short. It is very obvious that Professor Loewen has no desire to see American History taught objectively. Rather, It would appear that He wishes to see the current ''Optimistic, Pro-America, Right-wing ''Teaching perspective replaced by His own Neo-Marxist, Infantile Leftist,America is evil perspective. The solution to the problem is to teach American History objectively,Which is to say to teach Students to seek the truth. This Book advances so many shallow arguments that time would fail to mention all of them,Let us consider just one, Loewen'sbashing of President Woodrow Wilson.Loewen regards Wilson's attempt to overthrow the Bolshevik regime in Russia as another act of American imperialism Wilson had many failures but this act was not one of them. Wilson was one of the first Western Statesmen,Along with Winston Churchill,to recognize the evil murderous nature of Communism. This is one of many Historical facts that Professor Loewen seems unable or unwilling to grasp.
Book Review: Powerful, fascinating history, with a touch of an agenda
Summary: 4 Stars
I have to confess that I'm only half way through this book, but I'm impressed. This book doesn't just illustrate why american history texkbooks are bad due to their conflicting missions (they're written to create patriotic kids, as well as teach history and avoid upsetting school boards). Mr. Loewen does solid research, and presents solid historical material that fills in some of the gaps, and discusses why textbooks leave out this material. I am impressed. It could have been a light "George Washington didn't chop down the cherry tree" book. Instead, he writes about things like Woodrow Wilson's racism (he very publically wanted to drive all blacks out of government service, and his speaches lead to the reestablishment of the KKK) and militarism (we had troops in Russia on the side of the White Russians) that are important. If you didn't know that our troops were shooting at the Red Russians (and I didn't) I'd think that they're speeches about the US being their enemy was political rhetoric.Actually, a better historical example is that, when the "settlers" came over, they brought plagues that killed 95% of the people in the Americas. The resulting chaos, combined with the drastically superior weaponry, allowed Europeans to (over the course of 100 years or so) push aside the natives and occupy the land, in an intentional war of extermination. I know my american history books presented the "exploring the frontier" view, rather than the "enslaving the natives" view; that sort of behavior was only discussed in India (by the British) or Latin America (by the Spaniards). I had no idea that there were nearly as many Indian slaves as African slaves.
The only downside is that there's a touch of leftish politics in the book. This doesn't bother me too much, personally, since all authors have a perspective, and I'd rather read books from multiple perspectives than one.