Lies My Teacher Told Me : Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

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Summary: A good jumping off point into deeper study
Review: This book opened my eyes to history. Not that I bought everything the author put forth (although I think he is on the money); only that it created in me a desire to find out the real facts through my own study. This is a well-written and endlessly fascinating book. Since I read it, I always look between the lines of what is being told to me regardless of the poltitical orientation of the person speaking. An eye-opening read.

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Summary: I loved the book
Review: I thought it was a well thought out, informative book. I was amazed at all of the things I thought I knew about and ended up being lies. I have showed this book to teachers at my school and they all agree that most students don't become aware of these lies untill college. The history tecaher I have allowed me and aa friend to do a presentation to other classes exposing some of the lies this book talked about and all of the other students were just as stunned as I was at first, to find that they had been lied to from a book that millions of students all over the world read and learn info from every day. I am finally realizing why I hated history clss so bad when I was younger, every one of the people we talked about had a picture over them and they all appeared exactly the same, they all did good things for every one and took no more than what was given. But in realitly they all took every thing they wanted and more and they took advantage of any one they could.

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Summary: This is an invaluable corrective against our amnesia.
Review: I'm home schooling my daughter (12) and find I will use this book and its resources. Beyond the corrective it offeres, I especially like how the author is sensitive to the language and rhetoric of textbooks, even when they are striving to do justice to the complexities of history. The author understands that history needs to be experienced not as propaganda or (in the worst sense) as myth, but as the play of many forces and ideas that had consequences rather than just happened. We should be thankful for this book and those who treat themselves to it will understand how wrong-headed it would be to say that its author is merely pushing some crude political agenda. True, the work is political, but in the deepest sense of giving us a view of ourselves as a community stumbling and sometimes falling towards the future. Finally, the author's remarks on using alternative genres and more real primary sources so students can hear history, not merely read about it, are most refreshing and need to be acted upon by educators, especially in light of the cinematization of history which is often of dubious value.

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Summary: I thought I was very well-informed until I read this book.
Review: I am a very well-read student of history, a subject at which I excelled throughout high school and college, and have pursued actively ever since. Not since I read Dee Brown's classic, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (not for school, by the way), have I been so excited, aroused, and motivated to read a book. Lies My Teacher Told Me is an eye-opening, "can't-put-it-down" book that humanizes and clarifies American history for the reader. I pride myself on knowing the real story beneath the crap, but Mr. Loewen has awakened me to my own shortcomings and basic beliefs about American heroes and fables. WHOEVER CARES ABOUT THEIR CHILDREN AND THEIR NATION MUST READ THIS BOOK. This book has made sense out of some pretty confusing lies. It has changed my life. I am buying half a dozen copies to send to my nephews and neices.

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Summary: A bit too PC at times, but well worth reading
Review: Having a Bachelor's degree in History I found the book to be pretty eye-opening in places. His analysis of the political considerations that turn most public school textbooks into what is for the most part mindless mush is quite illuminating as well. However, his obvious lefty political orientation (and I'm a lefty myself) is all too present and is actually quite annoying in places. Nevertheless, with that in mind, it's easy to see why so many college students feel completely lied to by their high school instructors (and one thing the school boards can do to remedy that is to stop allowing P.E. teachers to inhabit history classes). The Babbits that run school boards and sit in principal's offices across the country demanding triumphalist histories that gloss over the real story are guilty of academic fraud and have robbed millions of school children of a clear picture of the nation's past.

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Summary: A passion for history
Review: Why was history class so bo-o-o-ring, as Loewen describes it? I had forgotten that I even learned anything in my high school history class until I picked up this book and found a spirited critique of several popular school textbooks, including the back-breaking one I once lugged around. Loewen brings to light the fallacies and vague assumptions that we carry around in our brains thanks to history class; and, in his own entertainingly brisk way, fills in some of the gaps in our education. Too bad this wasn't around when I was in school!

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Summary: A quote from book that says it all
Review: This is an excellent read. Perhaps a short quote from the book will best reveal it's thesis: "Indeed history is the only field in which the more courses students take, (in High School) the stupider they become." As a parent with two childred in grade school I have taken a whole new approach to my discussions of history with them. This should be required reading for grade school history teachers.

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Summary: Shocking; superb.
Review: Engaging and lucid, Loewen's analysis of the foibles of history teaching in U.S. public schools helped me in the process of re-evaluating my understanding of United States history and government. Would have blown my mind if I hadn't read Howard Zinn first. BTW, Amazon ships this book quickly at a good price -- I got it two days after ordering.

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Summary: The author forgot what his own title was.
Review: This book starts off on the right track. It corrects or fills in parts of early American history; Colubus, Revolutionary war, Civil war ect. BUT then it takes turn to push the authors own political agenda. The author believes that high school history should be used to push students toward his views. It is full of the usual jabs at the Reagan/Bush admin. with little supporting material to back up the claims. This author should have stuck to the title. Or the book should be retitled "Lies I Would Tell You if I Were Your Teacher"

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Summary: If you hated history class--this book will tell you why.
Review: Whether you are passively interested in politics or history or an old pro, you will learn something from this book. Even those who hated history class will not be able to put this book down as it exposes why American students are lied to in the classroom and what those lies are.