Lies My Teacher Told Me

Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

By: James W. Loewen

Narrated by: Brian Keeler

Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

This national best seller is an entertaining, informative, and sometimes shocking expose of the way history is taught to American students. Lies My Teacher Told Me won the American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship.

James W. Loewen, a sociology professor and distinguished critic of history education, puts 12 popular textbooks under the microscope, and what he discovers will surprise you. In his opinion, every one of these texts fails to make its subject interesting or memorable. Worse still is the proliferation of blind patriotism, mindless optimism, and misinformation filling the pages.

From the truth about Christopher Columbus to the harsh reality of the Vietnam War, Loewen picks apart the lies we've been told. This is a book that will forever change your view of the past.

©1995 James W. Loewen (P)2002 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"Lies My Teacher Told Me goes beyond recounting fallacies of history and correcting American image: it surveys social issues misreported, ideas misrepresented, and encourages students of history to think about not only the facts, but the reporting which embellishes and colors their presentation. An invaluable guide for the reader." (Midwest Book Review)
"An extremely convincing plea for truth in education." (San Francisco Chronicle)

Thought provoking reading or listening.

Loved the first 5 chapters then author goes on a tangent about race in chapter 6 through 8. Makes you question chapters 1 through 5 truefulness. Chapter 9 he then attacks greatfulness of our nation that so many have died for. Enough. Stopped listening. He did get my money. Shame on me.

Ultimately dies by its own sword

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I would recommend to a few friends who are intelligent enough to see through the misinformation and appreciate the core message of the book.

What was most disappointing about James W. Loewen’s story?

Professor Loewen fails to take his own advice to "treat the truth as sacred" and falls into just as many historic errors, though in the opposite bias, as the textbooks he criticizes. While correctly pointing out that current history textbooks repeat many half-truths and outright lies, while omitting other very important facts, he then goes forward to try and correct these commissions and omissions with equally heinous factual errors emphasizing different untruths, half-truths, and omissions.

While it may be necessary to swing the pendulum heavily in the other direction to counter decades of bad historic authorship in textbooks, it is unforgivable for the author who repeatedly claims that the truth is of utmost importance to then substitute his own disinformation. What we are taught as historic "facts" actually tend, more often than not, to be a consensus opinion based on available evidence (primary source) and interpretation thereof. Unfortunately, which facts are included, which are controversial, and which are considered apocryphal are influenced as much by politics and culture and even personal guilt as by any objective standard. The author, while recognizing faults in others, fails to recognize them in himself which, if anything, are even greater.

I am a frequent reader of revisionist history, long ago having recognized how full of errors my history education was, and appreciate what the author is trying to do. If one is willing to set aside a lot of his "facts" and focus on the message that the existing textbooks are seriously flawed, it is a valuable, though belabored, point. Therein lies its chief value.

For example, once the author starts to discuss ethnocentricity and the flaws of Christopher Columbus and the Plymouth colonists, about how they are lionized at the expense of the aboriginals and inconvenient facts to this mythos are swept under the rug, he seems to fall heavily into the other pervasive myth of the "noble savage." We have been encouraged incessantly by the purveyors of political correctness to believe that Indians in the Americas were pure and noble and represented all that was good about mankind, sort of a human equivalent of the elves in fantasy tails, and were nothing but victims at the hands of the evil Europeans and their weapons of war and their devastating diseases. While Loewen doesn't go quite that far with his demonization of Europeans, and I tend to agree with his assessment of their motivations and flaws on the whole, he fails to provide equal treatment to the Indians and their flaws. It is not acceptable to criticize the natives because modern politics have assigned them the role of victim. So rather than teaching the facts and events, both favorable and unfavorable, regarding each side and permitting the individual to decide who is noble, if anyone, and what was bad, the author insists on pursuing one-sided arguments to build up one side and denigrate the other apparently out of a misplaced sense of guilt.

Thus I feel the book overall has some moderate value to it, but take it all with a grain of salt. The ultimate message of the book, shown both by his mostly valid criticisms of other historians as by his own bad example, is that history does not exist in a vacuum and the message delivered to the reader has been heavily filtered by various influences and individuals along the way, each adding their own bias. Perhaps it is impossible to produce an unbiased history text, and that may be the lesson, though unintended, we can learn from Professor Loewen.

What does Brian Keeler bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I think the narrator does a fine job of providing a condescending tone towards the listener that the author likely approves of. You very much get the sense that not only is the author calling the textbook authors morons (which they often are) but also blames the listener/reader for believing these other authors. The premise that most American History books contain massive errors somehow seems to be the fault of the other victims in the narrative, the students. Instead, the tone of voice is one of a self-important intellectual who has never done an honest day's work chastising a group of children because they believe in Santa Claus. I'm sure the author was pleased with this.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No, though it might make a good History Channel 1-hour documentary.

Eye openingly honest and amazingly insightful

As a white male who grew up with the American history books of the early 70s, this book truly hits home and is a wake-up call for anyone as oblivious as me. While I knew the books we read as kids glossed over a lot of facts and were skewed to show the good side of our amazing country, I had no idea of the extent and never thought of the impact on our society and race relations as a whole.

In addition to the facts and corrections highlighted by this book, it also provides an amazing analysis on the state of our children's education regarding US history in a way that only an insider could.

While some of the details of the industry have evolved with the rise of the internet, the ideas still ring true and the flawed teaching is still relevant today.

I highly recommend this book as a great read as well as a finely produced and narrated audio book.

A must-read for all history lovers

I think I learned more from this book then my entire educational career of history classes combined. Not only was it informative but it was an opinionated, any opinion inferred relied heavily on facts, I was so blown away by this book and am blown away by the author. Looking forward to reading more of his ideas. This Book was written over 20 years ago and it speaks of sad truth that hasn't changed very much but hopefully can continue to change the minds of educators and historians and the average citizen. Do yourself a favor seriously, and read this book!

George Orwell's Future is here...

Should be a required follow-up to 1984. This details many of the ways historical events and people are misrepresented and polished in high school textbooks to make them more "acceptable" and instill a generic patriotism for our "benevolent" country. Helen Keller, Christopher Columbus, the treatment of Native Americans, the truth about Thanksgiving, our history of slavery and more are tracked in 12 textbooks. Mr. Loewen compares the offerings of each book with the true history and reveals the myths being taught in our schools. He asks why this is happening and offers several possibilities.
I found this very disturbing. Throughout the book I found myself echoing the phrase 'He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future". It reinforces the belief that our Educational system is dysfunctional and broken. I've never felt so strongly about homeschooling before!

"If knowledge is power, then ignorance cannot be bliss"

If you disliked high school history courses but know that knowledge of our countries persons and events is critical to empathetic and informed progress then this book is for you. Don't be discouraged by the first few chapters formatting, it is necessary to have a frame of reference for the rest of the book. This book will teach you our accurate history from Columbus to the 70s and provides political and social commentary and opportunities for progress and engagement in and out of the classroom. This should be considered a must read for every white American.

Sad but necessary

It is painful each time another national fraud is revealed and its damages itemized like drops of water torture. However, it is the sort of cleansing that is needed to disabuse white privilege of its absurd notions of "manifest destiny." rather it is a corrupt, degenerate series of lies and state supported propaganda that has caused so many well meaning people to leave school with this notion that they are almost magically imbued with pure,unblemished success throughout the world due to their righteousness. I wonder differences possible were there an even playing field.

So much pain and death and turmoil caused by the need to maintain white privilege that it has sadly corrupted the victims and the perpetrators. What a powerful nation this truly would be. Now we face the prospect of generations having to pass before we can hope to reach a realistic interaction. I believe, however, it can never happen because the evil of racism seems to thrive in this country. So rich, so powerful, yet so craven and petty. The United States is no symbol of anything but greed and jealousy. There are so many good people who seek to overcome this but they can never overcome because they cannot live long enough.

A Boring Volcano

Very wonderful information, but the narrator honestly doesn't use any range, other than boring or loud. It's much like cooking over a volcano or over a boring electric stove. This makes one wish that the narrator had actually spent some time understanding the impact and power of what he is reading, rather than reading it like an assembly manual for Ikea furniture. But overall, the information is invaluable and keeps you interested. It does also make a wonderful substitute for warm milk before bed.

Read this before your child begins 3rd grade

Yes, America is the richest nation. And yes, we hold free speech as among our most cherished rights.

Regardless, distortions and lies continue to fill our children's texts and our nation hasn't yet fallen, but it may slide into further nihilism as our children, like us, learn later in life that their primary education's American grand narrative of growth and progress is a complicated story in which there are no heroes with clean hands.

American history is a great story with its ending still unwritten. Read this and you'll learn something you weren't taught as well as how to teach your children what's missing from their history textbooks and social studies classes.

excellent 1994 crtique

Wonder what the teaching of American history in high school is like today? Hopefullly somewhat better.