Author: James W. Loewen
Publisher & Date: The New Press, 17 Jul 2018
Page Count: 480 pages
ISBN: 978-1620973929
Age/Reading Level: 14 & up/Grades 9 & up
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Book Information
Since its first publication in 1995, Lies My Teacher Told Me has become one of the most important―and successful―history books of our time. For this new edition, Loewen has added a new preface that shows how inadequate history courses in high school help produce adult Americans who think Donald Trump can solve their problems, and calls out academic historians for abandoning the concept of truth in a misguided effort to be “objective.”
What started out as a survey of the twelve leading American history textbooks has ended up being what the San Francisco Chronicle calls “an extremely convincing plea for truth in education.” In Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W. Loewen brings history alive in all its complexity and ambiguity. Beginning with pre-Columbian history and ranging over characters and events as diverse as Reconstruction, Helen Keller, the first Thanksgiving, the My Lai massacre, 9/11, and the Iraq War, Loewen offers an eye-opening critique of existing textbooks, and a wonderful retelling of American history as it should―and could―be taught to American students.
Challenges & Bans
This book has been challenged because it directly criticizes the patriotic, and often Eurocentric, biases in high school history textbooks, which some Americans see as “racially inflammatory” and “factually misleading”. This criticism stems from the book’s intent to present a more critical and comprehensive account of American history by highlighting marginalized voices and confronting historical controversies.
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Awards & Accolades
American Book Award, Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship, New York Times Bestseller, Critics Choice Award of the American Educational Studies Association
