James W. Loewen
History
My history classes in high school sucked. I vividly remember the class I took junior year (American/Arizona History, I think it was called). My teacher was a former football player and at the start of every new chapter in our textbook, we had to make a timeline of all the events we were going to read about. The more color and pictures your timeline had, the better your grade. That’s right, we were graded on our coloring ability. In a high school class. So you can see why history was never my favorite subject in high school. In college I took an American History class that I quite enjoyed, however (and realized yet again how much better college is than high school).
I’d heard about this book so when I saw it on the shelf, I scooped it up. I also want to point out that this is the revised edition. I never read the first one, so I really cannot compare the two, but I suppose reading the most current edition of any book is a good idea.
Lies My Teacher Told Me is pretty appalling. But in a good way. Mr. Loewen goes through several key points in history and tells us what the textbooks left out. Most notably, that Woodrow Wilson was a huge racist and pretty much everything about Christoper Colombus is a lie (it’s actually astounding to me now that we have a holiday for that man). Mr. Loewen also tells us how wrong we are about the first Thanksgiving. Oh, so wrong. I couldn’t believe what I was reading during most of this book. Some of it is hard to take. And in the end it makes me feel really sorry for history teachers who are stuck with these awful, dishonest textbooks.
Everyone should read this book, even if you disliked history as much as I did (which, according to Loewen, is true of most people). Your eyes will widen with disbelief, your stomach will churn. But you will learn a lot, and that is the true power of reading.
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