Lies My Teacher Told Me

Posted on 16 March 2018 by James W. Loewen

Americans have lost touch with their history, and in Lies My Teacher Told Me Professor James Loewen shows why After surveying eighteen leading high school American history texts, he has concluded that not one does a decent job of making history interesting or memorable Marred by an embarrassing combination of blind patriotism, mindless optimism, sheer misinformation, and outright lies, these books omit almost all the ambiguity, passion, conflict, and drama from our past.In this revised edition, packed with updated material, Loewen explores how historical myths continue to be perpetuated in today s climate and adds an eye opening chapter on the lies surrounding 9 11 and the Iraq War From the truth about Columbus s historic voyages to an honest evaluation of our national leaders, Loewen revives our history, restoring the vitality and relevance it truly possesses.Thought provoking, nonpartisan, and often shocking, Loewen unveils the real America in this iconoclastic classic beloved by high school teachers, history buffs, and enlightened citizens across the country. Free Read Lies My Teacher Told Me [ Author ] James W. Loewen [ Kindle ePUB or eBook ] – kino-fada.fr This was a great book The first two thirds gives example after example of the many lies, omissions, and half truths found in American high school history books, and the last third speculates why this has happened Here s one example Almost everyone knew the world was round before 1492 Columbus s main reason for traveling to the new world to find gold, and he was responsible for killing, torturing and enslaving natives by the millions Eight million in Haiti alone were reduced to 20...I originally picked this up several years ago because the blurb on the back cover appealed to me Lies My Teacher Told Me is for anyone who has ever fallen asleep in history class Mr Loewen s premise is that history textbooks have been presented to portray a slanted, optimistic and patriotic dumbed down view of America, because this suits the needs of the conservative white people who sit on the textbook adoption boards By critiquing 12 highly used American History textbooks, the author su I originally picked this up several years ago because the blurb on the back cover appealed to me Lies My Teacher Told Me is for anyone who has ever fallen asleep in history class Mr Loewen s premise is that history textbooks have been presented to portray a slanted, optimistic and patriotic dumbed down...Ostensibly, Lies My Teacher Told Me Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James Loewen is a book about factual inaccuracies found in a survey of twelve popular History textbooks That s a good hook, but unfortunately once the hook gets you the place it pulls you into is slightly different than what you might expect This book mightaccurately be titled Subtle Biases Created by Questionable Omissions in A Few Textbooks But that, of course, is not quite as bombastic a title Ostensibly, Lies My Teacher Told Me Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James Loewen is a book about factual inaccuracies found in a survey of twelve popular History textbooks That s a good hook, but unfortunately once the hook gets you the place it pulls you into is slightly different than what you might expect This book mightaccurately be titled Subtle Biases Created by Questionable Omissions in A Few Textbooks But that, of course, is not quite as bombastic a title and you probably wouldn t read the book, would you After a brief false start involving how Hellen Keller was a raging Communist, Loewen starts his review of American history in precolonial days, beginning with the atrocities of the Conquistadors and other European explorers Then it moves on to the atrocities of...James Loewen reviews the history books commonly used in the US public school system and the factual inaccuracies contained in those books The book goes over many of the common practices in publishing history textbooks especially those concerning sanitizing our history for children and what is appropriate for them to know about our country Before reading this I had never actually thought about my own experiences in school with history but I feel like a lot of what he discusses was really valid James Loewen reviews the history books commonly used in the US public school system and the factual inaccuracies contained in those books The book goes over many of the common practices in publishing history textbooks especia...This book is a TOTAL eye opener about how we re taught cultural prejudices and distorted American history through classroom textbooks I mean, I m pretty liberal, but the perspective of this author totally opened my eyes to things that I just took for granted about how our history was founded, about people we deify who were not the gods we simplify them into being, like Christopher Columbus and the Pilgrims, etc, and how racial inequality and sexual inequality is subtly established in the text i This book is a TOTAL eye opener about how we re taught cultural prejudices and distorted American history through classroom textbooks I mean, I m pretty liberal, but the perspective of this author totally opened my eyes to things that I just took for granted about how our histo...The problem with this one is that it has so much content, so much information per page, that it is hard to know where to start I found this book nearly life altering, particularly since I m a week away from studying to become a history teacher If you are in the US this is a very important book for you to read as you are sure to be shocked by some of the myths about your history that are disc... Americans need to learn from the Wilson era, that there is a connection between racist presidential leadership and like minded public response.This book is so important to read I do not know if there is any other field of knowledge which suffers so badly as history from the sheer blind repetitions that occur year after year, and from book to book.History is a subject that I haven t taken since high school Because I, like so many others, found it incredibly boring I grew up in Canada but largel Americans need to learn from the Wilson era, that there is a connection between racist presidential leadership and like minded public response.This book is so important to read I do not know if there is any other field of knowledge which suffers so badly as history from the sheer blind repetitions that occur year after year, and from book to book.History is a subject that I haven t taken since high school Because I, like so many others, found it incredibly boring I grew up in Canada but largely wh...Why does nobody like high school history Or civics, or social studies, or whatever they re calling it these days Why does pretty much everybody hate this class I mean, you have people who can memorize irrelevant sporting statistics for the last fifty years, but they can t namethan two nineteenth century presidents.The author of this book, a teacher and researcher of history, started looking into this He d found among his high school and college students an appalling level of ignorance Why does nobody like high school history Or civics, or social studies, or whatever they re calling it these days Why does pretty much everybody hate this class I mean, you have people who can memorize irrelevant sporting statistics for the last fifty years, but they can t namethan two nineteenth century presidents.The author of this book, a teacher and researcher of history, started looking into this He d found among his high school and college students an appalling level of ignorance in basic ...I love works that give you the uncensored truth about history, but this particular book left me feeling as though the author had something to prove, rather than reveal.When I started this book, I thought it would be along the lines of your teacher told you thisbut this is what happened You know like hey columbus didn t discover the new worldblah blah blah and there was some of that.Butimportantly, and farinterestingly, this book is an indictment of how American history is taught As the book went forward, even I found myself thinking yep, that s what I was taught and wondering if I would have found American history less boring had it When I started this book, I thought it would be along the lines of your teacher told you thisbut this is what happened You know like hey columbus didn t discover the new worldblah blah blah and there was some of that.Butimportantly, and farinterestingly, this book is an indictment of how American history is taught As the book went forward, even I found myself thinking yep, that s what I was taught and wondering if I would have found American history less boring had it been as filled with flawed characters as European Most of my European history comes from books I read a lot Starting with Garrett Mattingly, which is not a bad way to start Mattingly doesn t sugar coat And when European history is taught, teachers don t hav...

English
16 March 2018

James W. Loewen