Rating: 
Summary: quit the griping . . .
Review: well, i don't care what all these one-star review people think. i'm a junior in high-school, i've read this book, and i LIKE it. it's not boring, and while i don't necessarily agree with all of the points Dr. Loewen makes, i can respect anyone who has read twelve text books (without being forced to). i'm sorry, but text-books really are boring, and i would rather be forced to read a HUNDRED books like this one through my 'school-life' than ONE example of the flat, toneless <crud> that's been pushed on me for the past ten or eleven years. just my feelings on the matter, folks. this book was refreshing for me. i'm happy i read it. . . i wanna recommend it to my uncle Steve. he loves this stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: Thinly masked liberal revisionism.
Review: When I bought this book, I was expecting to learn numerous commonly held historical beliefs that are actually factually incorrect.Instead, the reader is treated to a couple hundred pages of railing against the Republican party and historical revisionism. The author spends a great deal of time explaining how unequal opportunity is in the United States and that it is the root of poverty which I doubt many historians would agree with. Worse, a large segment of the book is dedicated to bashing recent "history" such as the "excesses" of the Reagan/Bush administrations (the social policies of these two administrations were quite different, the only thing they really have in common is that both politicians belong to the Republican party). Bashing the "Decade of greed" is not history and very unlikely a topic a high school student is having covered in a history class. If Mr. Loewen wants to write political essays, that's his choice, but I resent reading political writings disguised as a "history" book.
Rating: 
Summary: a very eye-opening book
Review: I couldn't put this one down. Definitely the best history book I've ever ready. This book showed me how little I actually learned about history in high school. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: An eye opener
Review: Before I started reading this book I thought that I would prety much know everything in it, but I was really shocked about just how many more lies there were than I knew about. It is not just about correcting facts either. This book is a whole new way of thinking. Students would benefit more from reading this book alone than from reading 4 high school textbooks. Read this book. I guarentee even if you don't agree with parts of it,you will get so much out of it.
Rating: 
Summary: Bring a bag, you may get sick to your stomach
Review: James Loewen's book, while advertising to give us the straight scoop on history that a dozen years or more of public education could not, is little more than a bad attempt at trying to combine his radical leftist viewpoint with some history anecdotes he feels are left out or not discussed enough and calling it the real history of this country. Although there are some interesting points he does make, for the most part he goes on and on about how bad anyone who has managed to do something with their life should feel (that person could only be a white male according to Loewen) and that history books are only here to make those same people feel not so bad about their position in life. It is a terribly slanted book, and I would strongly suggest that unless you are forced to read it by your liberal history professor (as I was), let this one stay on the shelf.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely worth a read!
Review: The author is straightforward and backs up his statements with logical, interesting facts. I knew some of the history I learned in school was skewed, but never realized how much or what the real facts are. Definitely worth it - everyone should read this one to have a better understanding of history. You realize that historic figures really were average people, which is not as they're often portrayed.
Rating:
Summary: Let's stop encouraging mindless conformity
Review: Whether or not they agree with all of Loewen's analyses, most people would admit that high school American history texts are pretty boring. Loewen focuses on the problem; publishers are afraid to offend anyone, so textbooks see the government as altruistic, past leaders as cardboard heroes and US history as a constant progression towards some idealistic goal. The books tend to leave out direct quotes from speeches and other primary sources, they fail to make connections between the past and present, and they gloss over the recent past. Loewen's point is not that we have to agree with all his viewpoints but that we need to train students to think. Teachers can't do so if the entire class, by seeing history as a bunch of isolated facts to be memorized, is being put to sleep.
Rating:
Summary: Politically-correct lock-step nonsense
Review: This hyper-politically-correct tome will win the affection of academia, with their hatred of power (real or perceived) and hostility toward the very idea of dispassionate truth. It's not that the author makes no good points -- indeed, many of his points are extremely well-taken -- it's that his agenda is so open, his axe-grinding so blatant, that unless you've already researched the histories in-depth, you just don't know which parts of his analysis to trust and which to discard as leftist hyperbole and fiction. In fact, the best thing I can say about this book is that the author made little attempt to hide his very pronounced sociopolitical biases. My advice: Ignore the book. There are many books examining the mind-boggling distortions of "history" -- distortions as gladly perpetrated by the political left as the right -- which still manage to avoid the strident anti-establishment tone and vomitous academic pandering that Loewen glories in.
Rating:
Summary: The evidence is compelling!
Review: This is an excellent book that should be read by every American. The references are also excellent. The power of the themes and data in this book are reflected in the mindless responses of the right wingers who wrote reviews. Notice how they make no attempt to refute the logic of the argument or the evidence presented, but instead begin with name calling (PC, Hippie, BS, etc.). Did Columbus enslave and kill Arawaks (Why are there no Arawaks in Hispanola, and why are people originally from Africa living there instead?)? Were over 1,700 black men, women and children lynched in the southern states between 1890 and 1920? Did Jefferson own 170 slaves (and 267 at his death)at the time he declared that each human being is created equal, and did he whip them as any other slave master (and how is the right wing defense of the founders as "men of their time" reconciled with the right wing call for moral absolutism)? Was dynamite dropped from a plane onto a black neighborhood in Tulsa in 1921 (killing 75 and destroying 1,000 homes)? Who built America (my people were steelworkers and none of them ever saw an owner make a single sheet of steel, work a coke oven, etc.)? How many of the historic road signs in the south and elsewhere are full of lies/misrepresentations? Most of these are empirical questions--where is the empirical rebuttal? Hear the evidence and it will make you free--even you didiots on the right. All are welcome aboard the truth train (even the big coward,Rush).
Rating:
Summary: the real history emerges
Review: With all the bias that exists in our history classes, this gives a more accurate desription about American histroy and how it should be thought. The chpater red eyes probably has more information about Native Americans than all of the text books being used in schools. I recoman this book to anyone who wants to learn more about American history or is looking for ways to help better teach it.
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