Lies My Teacher Told Me

Everything Your History Textbook Got Wrong

Hardcover, 384 pages

English language

Published March 25, 2005 by New Press.

ISBN:
978-1-56584-100-0
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
29877812

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (31 reviews)

Since its first publication in 1995, Lies My Teacher Told Me has gone on to win an American Book Award, the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship, and to sell over half a million copies in its various editions. 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, and the Mai Lai massacre, 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. - Publisher.

16 editions

Review of 'Lies my teacher told me' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

What ages would I recommend it too? – Twelve and up.

Length? – Several evening's read.

Characters? – Multiple characters.

Setting? – Historical, global.

Written approximately? – 1995.

Does the story leave questions in the readers mind? – How many stories are there that he couldn't cover in this book? How much of history, like science, is a theory, and not a fact?

Any issues the author (or a more recent publisher) should cover? For students reading this book - what to do if you teacher doesn't want to learn the new facts - how to retain the correct information, and still pass the class of the teacher who won't learn.

Short storyline: Covers the finding of America, Thanksgiving, Racism, government, war, and the problem of recent history not being in the history books, and yet adults expecting children to remember events that happened before they were born.

Notes for …

Review of 'Lies My Teacher Told Me' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

 This book was pretty amazing. The Lies My Teacher Told Me really opened my eyes to public education and fictionalized history. Through out school, history was my least favorite class. Constantly I was bored with the empty fact crunching. Now I know why, and feel invigorated to learn more.<br/><br/>     I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone. Shout it from the rooftops!
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Subjects

  • American history
  • United States - General
  • Indians of North America in textbooks
  • History
  • Education
  • History - General History
  • United States
  • USA
  • Study & Teaching
  • Historiography
  • General
  • Indians of North America in te
  • Textbooks
  • Thanksgiving Day in textbooks