Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Lies My Teacher Told Me : Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen ISBN: 0-684-81886-8 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 03 September, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.9 (250 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: While there is liberal bias, his premise is sound.
Comment: Many other reviewers have a problem with the liberal bias in this book and it is there. In trying to give the alternative perspective to the textbook history, you almost have to have a liberal bias. However, the author is not a Gore Vidal type demagogue trying to destroy every cherished American ideal. What he is doing is giving the facts left out of the text books, then trying to come back and say why we should still admire the Pilgrims, Columbus, the Founding Fathers, etc.
His main point is not so much that the textbooks have a conservative bias, but that they have a BORING bias. People who love studying history don't usually find that love in K-12 studies. They usually get a copy of the Book of Lists or a really good college professor. (or a mutant high school teacher that is considered the "hard" grader, but that's only because you actually learn something) This is a shame. The author is arguing that in preserving the jobs of textbook authors, the textbooks are killing interest in learning. Instead of becoming good little citizens, children grow up and become surly cynical jerks. Ok, maybe that's not the textbook's fault, but it would be nice to know that Lincoln really did give anti-slavery speeches that compared the Civil War to a holy war or that there was an active abolitionist movement both white and black or that the Civil Rights movement wasn't the first time that black and white citizens worked together in a common purpose and that the Reconstruction was not a bunch of Carpet Baggers as portrayed in Gone with the Wind.
Read it. Find out why you have hated history all this time. Especially read it if you are a bored high school student. Then read something else historical. May I suggest American Aurora or Thomas Paine's Common Sense?
Rating: 4
Summary: A Must Read for any Student of American History
Comment: As a conservative white male who views revisionist history quite skeptically, I did not expect much from this book. As a student of American history, I understood what a woeful job our textbooks and (unfortunately) our teachers do in teaching the actual history of this country, but I never expected both the depth and the level of scholarship Mr. Loewen presents in this book. It is well researched, well written and much needed. Having grown up near an Indian reservation, my own personal studies in original sources confirm how accurate Mr. Loewen really is. The book is hardly "political correctness" run amuck as suggested by one review. And his point is not to paint America as evil or bash Christian Europeans as two other reviews would lead us to believe. This type of simple minded attack does not tell us anything about the book, but rather betrays the reviewers' own entrenched viewpoints - viewpoints that certainly will not be changed by exposure to the truth. In fact, the criticisms make Mr. Loewen's point almost better than he can as to why history is taught in feel-good myths rather than truth. Yes, Mr. Loewen treats certain issues and not others. He tells us he is doing so several times throughout the book, and makes apologies for it. This is not intended to be a replacement for a full history of the United States. Mr. Loewen makes good and valid suggestions as to such replacements. It is not even intended to be a complete coverage of all the things our history texts get wrong. He would need several more volumes for that, and even then would get some of it wrong. For those who actually read the book (and many reviewers obviously did not), he admits all of this. Mr. Loewen's book is an important start. But it is only a start. One reviewer, in criticising the book, stated that we must learn from our past. But this is exactly the point of the book. We must and can learn from our past, but only if we have the objectivity and moral courage to accept what that past was. As a white Christian Anglo-Saxon male, I feel no need to beat myself up as a result of the deeds done by white Christian Anglo-Saxon males who are long dead. But I do feel the need to move forward with as good an understanding as I can have of the cultural and personal histories that cause people to act as they do - especially those whose backgrounds are so different from my own.
Rating: 5
Summary: About time
Comment: It's about time somebody collected all this information and made it available. A vast majority of Americans who grew up in the 50s, 60s, and even 70s were fed wrong information, straight out of "history" books. Most people don't realize that history gets written by those who are able to get their foot in the door. All you have to do to realize this is witness the news via different stations and newspapers. As Winston Churchill said, "History will be good to me, for I intend to write it." That's it in a nutshell. Have also read two really great books lately, one being somewhat realated to this, obliquely, and one a work of fiction. A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING is a wonderful, concise book and fits well with "LIES" while a book called "THE BARK OF THE DOGWOOD" is an interesting take on race and what we're taught, though it is a complete work of fiction and not anything along the lines of this book. At any rate, all are excellent, but whatever you do, buy LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME first and read it. It's about time.
 |
Title: A People's History of the United States : 1492-Present by Howard Zinn ISBN: 0060528370 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
 |
Title: Lies Across America : What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong by James W. Loewen ISBN: 0684870673 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 14 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
 |
Title: Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of American History by Richard Shenkman ISBN: 0060972610 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 03 August, 1992 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
 |
Title: The Greatest Stories Never Told : 100 Tales from History to Astonish, Bewilder, and Stupefy by Rick Beyer ISBN: 0060014016 Publisher: HarperResource Pub. Date: 18 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
 |
Title: Legends & Lies of World History by R. Shenkman ISBN: 0060922559 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 July, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
