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Summary: Lies, Lies, Lies!
Review: How much American history does the average American know? Recent stats suggest appallingly little. And the history we do know has been spoon fed to us in the form of biased, watered-down, or politically correct textbooks. Going on the premise, as Malcolm X asserted, that history is the most important of disciplines, Loewen attempts to pulverize some of the pseudo-patriotic claptrap we've acquired over the past 500 years.Who knew Woodrow Wilson was a racist, denying all black access to the White House, even during important functions? Not me. How many who've seen The Miracle Worker realize that later in life Helen Keller became a radical rabble-rouser supporting a variety of less-than-acceptable causes. And these shockeroos just scratch the surface. Loewen's debunking helps us recognize how skewed political agendas and momentary bias can hoodwink whole generations of free-thinking people.
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Summary: Best book I've read this year...
Review: This is an excellent book that helped me to understand why my high school history texts were so damned boring. Mr. Loewen explains some of the processes within the business of textbook publishing, but even more interestingly, though, he examines textbook "coverage" of several American icons, including Columbus, Woodrow Wilson, the American Indians, etc, and introduces the reader to the other side of each of those coins. Fascinating. Left me wanting more (and now I'm back on Amazon *looking* for more!).
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Summary: "Afro-Phoenicians"?
Review: Overall, very good. But I do have a bone to pick with the term "Afro-Phoenicians" he chooses to use for the Phoenicians. Isn't that a bit like saying "Afro-Egyptians", "Arabo-Hebrews" or "Euro-Greeks"? Everything I've read so far suggests that the Phoenicians were a Semitic people (or peoples) who first rose to prominence in the vicinity of modern Palestine, and whose exploration of the Mediterranean coast in competition with early Hellenic Greece led to the founding of Carthage in North Africa. In today's American English, the prefix "Afro-" usually refers to descendents of peoples native to Africa south of the Sahara, not to the inhabitants of classical Mediterranean civilisations. I agree that the Phoenicians need to be given credit for the first known circumnavigation of Africa, and for inspiring Prince Henry the Navigator's life work. I also agree that the proto-Polynesian colonisation of Madagascar via the Indian Ocean, which brought the banana and other important food crops from Southeast Asia to Africa south of the Sahara in classical times, needs to be given more prominence in the history of great navigation feats. It is also quite possible that voyagers from sub-Saharan Africa could have crossed the Atlantic long before the time of Columbus without our having any record of such an achievement today. Certainly the West Africans who gained control of the slave ship carrying them to the Caribbean in the late 1830s showed the ability to navigate on the Atlantic using familiar constellations at night. That was part of the reason the ship ended up making landfall in New England instead of Cuba. However, the Egyptian, Phoenician and Carthaginian seamen were innovators in a Mediterranean tradition, and their achievements rightfully remain as the heritage of today's Mediterranean peoples. None of these peoples are called by the prefix "Afro-" in today's language, so I find Professor Loewen's use of "Afro-Phoenician" unnecessarily misleading, and a blot on an otherwise well-written critique.
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Summary: History is political
Review: This book demonstrates that no matter what we were taught in high school, history is part of political rhetoric. Every piece of historical writing is a reflection not only of the period that it is about, but also of the period in which it was written. Loewen emphasizes this by examining contradictions and debates within the historical community. For those who disliked this book because they perceived liberal bias, I think they missed the point. Loewen's goals seems not so much to be that his version is the only true story but that history is a political discourse that is relevant to contemporary life. Those who control our history books -- traditionally white males -- control how we perceive our past, and hence our future. Not until we realize that history is not just facts but a political interpretation of the facts can we really understand why we are where we are today.
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Summary: Reviewer bias is alive and well!
Review: I am quite stunned by the intensity of the reactions of many of the reviewers who are so adamantly sure of themselves - as if their biases were not equal to Loewen's! They go right for his throat and offer not a word of thoughtful review of the material. Regarding the question of how to truthfully, or better yet, "thoughtfully" teach our history, I think the main problem is in how we teach it to our grade-schoolers. We can hardly take children that young and say, "Look here, this is what Columbus did! Ooh!" We have to decide at what age we should present our children with "the whole truth". By the time they get to that high school history class, we should have history dept.programs that flesh out (humanize) the cardboard figures that we have learned about in grade school. I think that is primarily what the author is talking about. Don't lie by omission. That doesn't mean we have to know every paltry detail of every action; but it does mean that we should not choose to leave important information out when we tell the story. We need to know as much as we can about what has happened in the past. The real burden is on us to be responsible and fair in our opinions.
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Summary: Lies My Teacher Told Me
Review: James Lowen has exposed several problems I had with American History coarses in high school and college. I would love to have had the information this book brought to my attention when my college professor was assigning fictionalized autobiographies. (Lies my teacher assigned) I was, however, amazed to discover his liberal bias. I think it is amazing how someone could want to expose so much government sanctioned evil, and still be a proponent of the very same institution. All the same, I appreciate his honesty.
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Summary: pretty good book with some small flaws
Review: This book is perhaps a bit misnamed. Maybe "why my teacher lied to me" would be more acurate. We get a bit too much social theory and not enough investigation of what is mistought. Nonetheless, the book was pretty interesting. I am sure some of the reviewers here didn't actually read it, because there are statements about the contents of the book which are simply factually wrong. I suspect they read conservative bad reviews of the book, which I find funny, as the book, if anything picks on democrats at least as much as republicans ( I belong to nether party ). I also think the author goes too far in some of his criticisms. However, in factual elements he is quite well-referenced, and has copious referenced footnotes.
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Summary: INTERESTING, BUT BEWARE OF LOEWENS BIAS
Review: Loewen writes an interesting book that needs to be read with caution. He brings up many interesting points that merit scrutiny. The treatment of US history often is told from a white, male, Eurocentric point of view, but Loewen often criticizes this with his P.C. rubric. Loewen is not even a historian, he is a political scientist that often presents incorect information, especially in the chapters about European history. As an example of his bias, Loewen criticizes history books for misrepresenting or omiting information about white American leaders, but in the same book criticizes history books for bringing up the fact that Martin Luther King Junior forged parts of his doctoral thesis. How can you criticize both? Overall I would recommend this book to anybody, but also warn them of Loewens bias.
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Summary: We should re-examine how History is taught
Review: I believe that quite a few of the reviewers below are missing the point. While admittedly, the author is politically liberal, he is not attempting to promote his own political views. Instead, he is suggesting that if American History courses provided a complete picture of events and their impact upon future events, instead of the shallow one-sided white-American cheerleading that currently takes place, that perhaps students would be better prepared to take a position (be it liberal, conservative, or other) upon where this country stands and where it should be heading. While the author gets a bit repetitive, I was thrilled to re-learn what I was taught in High School, and I was fascinated to see how the dry list of events I memorized actually tied together. The author succeeds in getting the reader to seriously consider how our children should be educated in the future.
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Summary: Thank you, Mr. Loewen!
Review: I am a senior in high school and was at one time preoccupied with Social Darwanism. I seriously believed in "survival of the fittest." Lies My Teacher Told Me is one of the factors that showed me the light. Because of this book, I understand the plea of the proletariat and have compassion and understanding for other ethnic groups. As for these one-star-reviewers, they need to hightail it back to medieval Europe when and where they can exercise their divine right. James W. Loewen demonstrates that there is nothing wrong with liberalism, socialism, and skeptism. Lets give kids a real education rather than spoon feeding them overly patriotic, eurocentric dogma!
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