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Summary: Lies My Teacher Told Me : Everything Your American History T
Review: Disjointed, poorly organized and disappointing
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Summary: Good source for begginers
Review: The author admits this wasn't a complete history text correction, but his main view came across loud and clear: history textbooks are boring, inaccurate, and bring apathy to citizens.I understood quickly how knowing our history is probably the most important subject, yet underrated, of our education in this country. We need to question more to learn. How can anyone question when nothing controversial or of substance is presented to us? How can we learn when we are told to just memorize rote, irrelevant facts? When we understand where we came from, how we got here, and the mindset of those before us, it's easier to understand where we are at and how to contrast it in the present. We can also be more proactive in keeping to the spirit of a government system that allows it's people to effect changes for the better, if we understand the story. How can anyone change anything if we're told from our texts that it's all worked out for us so just get the grade and move on? Texts are written in an authoritative tone that make them completely believable. Mr. Loewen shows how the texts' authority isn't always written with knowledge on particular subjects, if ever. He has footnoted everything, bringing to the focus that reading first hand generation material is better than what textbooks habitually do: not footnote and summarize their view to look digestible to the weathly white male populace (my words, not his). This point makes me wonder why highschools (and especially colleges) push research skills, make students gather and read different sources, footnote, draw conclusions, ask questions, etc. yet the texts they teach from show no such example. It's all briefly grazed over in a mere 800 pages filled with superfulous summarizations from 3rd or more generation information. I looked at my own college history text and found nothing mentioned of the Arawak Indians when Columbus set foot on their land. Instead it said that the land was largely uninhabited and what an opportunity for the crowds of Europe. It even when so far to say how monumental for Columbus to prove that the world was NOT flat. (I finally found a reason for it's usefulness: fire-starter; on second thought, the fumes might ruin my fireplace; trash-city) Now I'm seriously questioning the idea of MYTH. We learn of the Greeks and their myths, yet don't even notice how we believe some very perposterous myths ourselves from our own recent history. At least the Greeks had a point. What's theirs? And we're passing this garbage onto our children daily! The school systems aren't even trying to correct this. Mr. Loewen uses the texts from the 90's, yet I have seen current history texts and find little information changed. Sure, they are more colorful, more web links, extra activities, but the content remains unreliable for real learning. They have spiced it up with colors to attract the children (teachers?) looking for eye-candy. this is only perpetuating more consumerism, not educated citizens who could potentially effect a change as our predecessors have. I recommend this book to anyone who thinks the system stinks, but isn't sure how. If you were educated from textbooks, then it's time to understand what they never taught you. Educate yourself. This book is one that will provoke questions for and in you, open your eyes, and lead you to a better place as a true citizen, not the apathetic one that textbook publications have left you being. Their message: to make good citizens out of you by painting a rosey picture, even if they have to lie outright or omit facts. What is really happening to school aged children (and adults) is quite the opposite. We accept our fate instead of changing it. You can't change what you don't know or understand. You can't ask if you are told: this is what it is, end of story. Mr. Loewen does an excellant job of pointing to the "what" and "how" we missed it. I'm surprised this book isn't more widely read by homeschooling parents of whom many consistently rely on textbooks with the same boring slants.
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Summary: Packed with info, facts and ideas.
Review: When I first got this book, it looked shorter than I expected. Don't be fooled by its lightweight though. It is packed with a lot of information and it takes time to read and really absorb the ideas and facts presented in the book. Mr. Loewen's ideas on the dismall performance of American students knowing their own country's history is about right on. I definitely was not a history buff in high school and I think the reasoning may be partly that what we are taught is only meant for short term memory for upcoming tests. It's focus seems to be remembering dates and facts about things and people that many students see no connection to in their lives or history. I think his argument that the fact there is little or no debate in the classes regarding controversial issues keeps the students from getting engaged in their classes. I got the book for the historical facts in it and I was not disappointed. About 20% of the book talks about the history textbooks at the high school level. Many of the examples in the book only strengthen his argument that students are not being challenged to think for themselves and that pieces of history that have really no bearing on anything significant receive as much paper and time as more important and recent historical happenings (such as the Civil Rights Movement). For my taste, there was too much emphasis on the textbooks. I just wanted a more complete history lesson on the subjects in the book, not a detailed comparison of each of his 12 textbook examples. Still I gave the book 4 stars due to the subjects covered and the facts regarding them. This is a great book for American history buffs and is a good compliment to Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States".
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Summary: Gets into important subject areas.
Review: For the most part this book is what one might expect from the title: it covers a lot of ground quickly, and is fairly interesting and fun. What raises the book a notch in my opinion, is that Shenkman sometimes gets into important subject areas. For example, there is a fascinating section on myths of Nazi war preparedness and wartime production. I had read Albert Speer's somewhat self-serving book years ago, and the material Shenkman provides helps put in better prospective the apparent lack of impact of allied bombing on Nazi armament production. There is a chapter on the American family which is jumpy and incomplete, but at least it whets the appetite for a book on this subject, as well as providing some fascinating facts.
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Summary: Follow The Trail Of Truth
Review: The act of reading and understanding a history textbook is a process that requires critical thinking, questioning, and in-depth examination. The history that is normally taught in high school classrooms is not always accurate or based on primary sources of information. In certain situations the historical information exposed to high school students consists of symbolic myths that merely fuel patriotic needs and ethnocentric attitudes. In other situations historical facts automatically become blurred due standardization strains and over consolidation of historical facts. A definitive addition to this aspect of the historical curriculum has been done by James Loewen in Lies My Teacher Told Me. This detailed book covers different events that have taken place in history that are not accurately portrayed in most high school textbooks. The books main points basically cover issues such as the truth behind Columbus, Native American interaction in the foundation of the country, and how race relations have truly developed throughout the nations history. The process of writing accurate unbiased historical information is a complicated task with so many different stories and sources to draw from. Loewen explains in great detail with use if primary sources the truth behind important aspects of American history. The information presented by the book provides a solid background for educators and students in the field of history.
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Summary: Insightful revelation
Review: Amazing book which helps explain the direction this country is heading, with so much mis-information about the past. I consider it a real revelation as it was written in 1995, un-tarnished by the Election debacle of 2000. A great companion read is Lies Across America. Great expo on the lies perpetrated on us with monuments and markers, especially those dealing with the Civil War. Both books offer a glimpse at the truth, not usually found in the popular media, let alone academic texts.
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Summary: The new testament
Review: I have an insane history teacher, and it is my unfliching belief that he uses this book to convert his students into mindless diciples of history. I'm not saying it's not helpful and informative, yet I can't help but think that perhaps some people take it a bit too seriously. :: coughmr.reidcough ::
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Summary: What you should have been told
Review: This book does a marvelous job of critiquing the way we teach American History in such a way so as to instill patriotism, and even the racism inherent in the way we choose to lie about it. It also illustrates this by showing much of the truth and explains exactly why this happens, spreading the blame more or less amongst everyone in society, and explaining why. His reasoning for this is that the chain can be broken at any level, yet it never is. This is a book that everyone should read, since the facts that are omitted tell a very different story than others. The one problem though is that the focus of it's critiques is overly based on race. Though it's understandable that even so much information should be there, in turn he skimped on the areas such as lies taught about class, government action, etc. He himself notes that the book is incomplete because of this.
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Summary: Not perfect, but well worth reading.
Review: It's refreshing to read a history book from another point of view. Loewen brings up some interesting facts which you aren't likely to find in a high school text book. For example; "during the entire period from 1953 to 1977, the people in charge of U.S. foreign policy were all on the Rockefeller family payroll." A very interesting and worthwhile book.
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Summary: TEXTBOOKS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM
Review: If history textbooks included everything the author suggests, the students would need forklifts to carry them. Mr. Loewen might be uplifted if he took a closer look at today's history textbooks. Many are loaded with not only truth, but a lot of politically correct Euro-Western bashing as well. This book serves to beat the dead horse of white racism against minorities in general and blacks in particular. The author would do well to stop dwelling in the past and and start addressing the real issues haunting black Americans. And tired commentary on textbook racism would be a thing of the past.
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