Lies My Teacher Told Me

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Summary: an important book
Review: i have to laugh at people who call this book "leftist" and "radical." the truth is neither left nor right, radical nor conservative - it is simply the truth. and we, as a country, are dumbing down our children by spoonfeeding them lies.

true, this book has a lot of commentary by the author, but his facts are well-documented, and he has good insight into why the teaching of history is as farcical as it is. this book is for anyone who's ever been left dissatisfied by a bland, inaccurate and plainly BORING account of a glowing american history. the truth is hard to swallow, but it's important.

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Summary: THIS Explains Why I Was Bored In History Class!
Review: In Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everthing Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, James W. Loewen explains how, in a misguided attempt to whitewash one of the most exciting fields of academic study, the publishers and authors of high school history textbooks have made the subject about as interesting as last week's oatmeal.

Many may avoid this fascinating book, expecting it to be some sort of left-wing tract, but Loewen is admirably fair-minded. He's also laugh-out-loud funny at times, as evinced by this footnote on the assassination of President Kennedy: "Many Americans found Oliver Stone's film JFK persuasive, even though the conspiracy it concocts seems to include Vice President Johnson, the Pentagon brass, the CIA, the military-industrial complex, the Mafia, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir."

I could pick nits here (the index could be better, there could be more coverage of the labor movement, etc.), but overall this is riveting and informative reading. Highly recommended to anyone who cares about history and the way it is taught.

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Summary: Ask why he chooses the approach he does.
Review: As a graduated BA in History, I really enjoyed learning some of the things that Loewen brought into the open. However, after reading this book I was bothered. It took me over a year to figure out what it was that was so irritating. It is simply this he points out no interesting and little known facts that show the U.S. in a good light. There are thousands of examples as to why the United States is better and more enlightened than most other countries in the world yet he chooses not to show any example that could possibly bring a sense of pride or accomplishment in what our ancestors did by bringing this country into being.

This very one-sided display of academic and intellectual wit seems very immature. People are not trying to get to this country from everywhere else in the world because of the class system, but because in the United States anything is possible if you have the brains, brawn and self discipline to get what you want. No one ever said that it was going to be easy, that is what pusuit of happiness is all about. At least in this country you can. Try getting ahead in any socialist country in Europe and you'll find yourself tracked into a life career with no chance of anything else by your senior year of high school. This country is definitely not perfect, but who is Mr. Loewen comparing it to? What country is better and done more for the world? Not one. I would suggest Mr. Loewen concentrate on that. If this sounds like I took this book personally, I did. This is my country. I am educated and know the big picture. Get some perspective Mr. Loewen

P.J. O'Rourke said it best, "America should first and foremost protect its existing democratic institutions. Second, try to imrove them if possible (but even doing this is dangerous). Lastly to try to spread it to the rest of the world, but this should be very low on the priority list as most countries in the world are not ready for it." (paraphrased).

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Summary: leftist radical revisionist slant of american history
Review: This book is extremely well documented with footnotes. However footnotes are of books, obviously the author has chosen, to support his viewpoint. I made it to about 250 pages into this book. Mr.Loewens' version of the Civil War and Lincoln is so totally biased,it is offensive. From the book: "...unlike the Nazi Swastika, which has been disgraced, even in the North, Whites still proudly display the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy...". So now we have Mr.Loewen equating the Confederacy with Nazi Germany. I guess Robert E. Lee, graduate of West Point and admired intensely by Grant and Sherman must be the rival of Himmler, or Hitler. Page 177:"... Lincolns concern about the crime of racism...". Geez, I did not know that Slavery and Racism are synonymous! I do believe some misguided souls might consider themselves superior to another ethnic group without necessarily enslaving them. Mr.Loewens account of the Civil War is really criminal. Read this book and then read "April, 1865". No mention at all is made of the sheer numbing butchery of Southerners by Sherman. Sherman, actually used to cry at night during the war because of the awesome number of northern and southern lives he caused terminated during the war. If you want a good look at the mind of some radical leftist rewriting of American History read Mr.Loewen's drivel. Thank God, He is being largely ignored by textbook editors. I know that there were alot of atrocities affected by that evil of most evil: White men of European Ancestry, but for the love of the Almighty, one would hope Mr.Loewen would even TRY to be less biased. His glorification and rehabilitation of John Brown and complete dismissal of Nat Turner makes one wonder what Mr.Loewen's agenda actually is, it certainly isn't the truth. If a ruling White Male Conspiracy exists to censor the truth, then how did Mr.Loewen get his book published and how are you reading about it here? It seems to be a trend of a number of college teachers to rework history to support certain social obsessions of theirs. If you are after objective information, this book is excellent in illustrating the new social Orwellian concept of rewriting the past to serve the present. --This text refers to the Paperback edition

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Summary: Interesting material, but very preachy
Review: Being a bit of a leftist myself, I find the content of this book right on. It offers excellent perspective on how our high school history curriculum promotes a euro-centric mindset and marginilizes minorities, while making students lose interest in the subject of history overall. BUT...

I tire quickly of reading every page exactly how these interesting things he's pointing our are racist or boring or whatever. A writer who wants to sway somebody's opinion is much better served to point out the facts and let the reader come to their own conclusion rather than beat them over the head with it repeatedly.

Also, I find the practice of end-noting in this book suspect. The author uses end-notes copiously, which is good for a scholarly work. But, he often puts more than just references in the notes. In fact, sometimes he even tempers extreme (misleading?) statements in the text with the endnotes. I would find this practice more palatable if the notes were printed on the page as footnotes where I have a chance of reading them, rather than at the end of the book.

Rating:
Summary: A True Masterpiece of Literary Excellence!
Review: ... This book is a true masterpiece of literary excellence! ... I am not kidding! ... This book will UNDO what "twenty years of schoolin', and they put you on the day shift" (Dylan) books have DONE to you. ... Enlightenment, being NOT the acquisition of anyTHING but the NEGATION of illusion, is in reality, a stripping away and washing clean of noetic lies - self-induced, or conditioned from "without." ... All those LIES that they have been cramming into your head since pre-school are cast away like demons by Jesus, or like smoke by the wind, when you read this book. ... Like the song says: "We don't need no education. We don't need no thought-control. ... TEACHER - leave them kids alone!" (Pink Floyd) ... Indeed, this book WILL enlighten you to historical truth. I guarantee it!

... You've never HEARD of Michael Parenti? ... Noam Chomsky is too DEEP for you? ... Howard Zinn's People's History Of The United States is not in your town library? ... FEAR NOT! ... With interlibrary loan, you can read ANY of the books written by ALL of the preceding three authors. But before you do, read THIS book - LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME by James Loewen - FIRST. It will blow your mind!

... I bought this book in its hardcover edition when it was first published, and scanned parts of it then - but I never read the whole thing until I chose to read it for a Directed Studies class I was taking with Dr. Levon Chorbajian as a Sociology Major at The University of Massachusetts at Lowell in 1998. I had previously written to the author while he was still a Sociology professor at the University of Vermont, and sent him a photo I had taken of the Civil War Memorial of Black Troops on Beacon Hill in Boston, MA, when he requested people write to him in an article published in the Boston Globe that was discussing his NEW BOOK to be published called: LIES ACROSS AMERICA. ... Well, he WROTE BACK TO ME, thanked me, and we have corresponded many times over the years since then.

... In the Spring of 2000, Professor Loewen visited the University of Massachussets at Lowell and gave a lecture about his latest book. He spoke for quite a while, answered all of our questions, was kind and gracious enough to share his time and company with us, and allowed us all to take pictures with him. He even stayed on an extra day with one of our professors from the History department in order to do more research, take in the sights, and enjoy our company together. ... We were all grateful, will never forget him, and we can assure anyone reading this that he is BEYOND "power politics" of division, has NO radical axes to grind, and is a true gentleman and a scholar totally devoted to his discipline of researching the historical truths of our nation in order to share them with us all. ... THANK YOU, professor Loewen, for a job well done - and we wish you many more years of exciting research and documentation of dramatic discoveries that will help enlighten us all further in our quest for historical and sociological authenticity! ... - The Aeolian Kid.

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Summary: A recommended "supplement" to standard US history teaching
Review: It becomes clear that standard US public-school history texts are uniformly insipid, boring and inaccurate recountings of a few facts and some myths about America. The texts all feature sugar-coated glossings-over of shameful facts of genocide, environmental pillage, state-sanctioned violence and war crimes, political offenses and deep-seated ethnic hatred and racism over the 500-year history of the European presence in the New World.

Loewen reveals that basic functions of modern history textbooks were to instill reverence for the state -- patriotism if you will -- by creating heroes of ordinary and often less-than-perfect historical figures, by sweeping inconvenient facts under the rug (you mean Helen Keller wasn't just a nice blind lady?), and by casting everything in a Panglossian sheen of blind optimism.

If the the creation of history-ignorant, uncritical, flag-waving, jingoist consumers by the public school system is okay, then this book is not for you. But if you want to find out a few of the more controversial aspects of our great country's past (something school text publishers all recoil from) then do yourself a favor and read it. Buy one for a friend too.

On the bright side, it's assigned reading in some high school history classes, so that's a good sign.

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Summary: Eye-opening, and far more than "Leftist PC".
Review: This was a wonderful eye-opening book that beautifully highlights what's lacking in our history education. Most of what is lacking comes from the crime of ommission (for example, why is it that no one ever mentions what happened to Helen Keller after she went to Radcliffe?--she became a communist). When you leave out the bad side of life, not only does our understanding of our own past become one-sided, it prevents us from learning from the mistakes we have made.

I disagree with the people who chalked the book up to an author pushing his "leftist PC agenda," and the people who claimed it's racist against European Americans. I'm white, not particularly liberal, and am only offended that no one ever told me or my fellow students the less-than stellar aspects of our past. I've often found that people claim racism and "PC" when someone points out the negatives in a dominant culture. They can't take the heat, so they claim racism and PC, rather than being willing to take a long, hard look at what our culture has done (both good AND bad).

Rating:
Summary: not exactly what I expected
Review: It was a good book; I learned a lot from it. My complaint, however, is that instead of the book being geared toward telling people what really happened, which is what I thought it was, it was mostly geared as a research book and resource manual for teachers. Too much space was devoted to which textbooks said what and why they did what they did. That should be covered, yes, but it didn't need half the book to repeat some things over and over again.

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Summary: Great information - drags at points
Review: While this book had some exceptional information and I know from other research and readings that the facts that it proposes are in fact true eventhough they fly in conflict with history lessons of high school, parts of it were difficult to wade through. It was not difficult because of a difficult theme or difficult to understand information, it just plain drags at some places.
There were parts where I could not put the book down until I finished the chapter and parts where I could not wade through the chapter except that I was stuck on a plane with nothing better to do.
The primary problem is that this book moves from a fascinating book about the errors we are taught in our high school history classes to a sociology text on the plight of black people in today's society and how it relates to the past.
The scholarly part of the errors in history were well done and accurate but he apparently moves from his area of expertise in history into an area of sociology where some arguements are interesting but most are a continuous rehash of the same thing over and over.
I still would buy the book and recommend it but would have preferred it if he had stayed in the areas of historical inaccuracies and stayed away from extrapolating from those facts to derive social theories.