Rating: 
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.
Rating:
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.
Rating: 
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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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.
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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.
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