Lies My Teacher Told Me (Young Readers' Edition)

Everything American History Textbooks Get Wrong

By: Dr. James W. Loewen, Rebecca Stefoff

Narrated by: L. J. Ganser

Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Now adapted for young readers ages 12 through 18, the national best seller that makes real American history come alive in all of its conflict, drama, and complexity

Lies My Teacher Told Me is one of the most important - and successful - history books of our time. Having sold nearly two million copies, the book won an American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship. 

Now Rebecca Stefoff, the acclaimed nonfiction children's writer who adapted Howard Zinn's bestseller A People's History of the United States for young readers, makes Loewen's beloved work available to younger students. Essential listening in our age of fake news and slippery, sloppy history, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers' Edition cuts through the mindless optimism and outright lies found in most textbooks that are often not even really written by their "authors." 

Loewen is, as historian Carol Kammen has said, the history teacher we all should have had. Beginning with pre-Columbian history and then covering characters and events as diverse as the first Thanksgiving, Helen Keller, the My Lai massacre, 9/11, and the Iraq War, Loewen's lively, provocative telling of American history is a "counter-textbook that retells the story of the American past" (The Nation). 

This streamlined young readers' edition is rich in vivid details and quotations from primary sources that poke holes in the textbook versions of history and help students develop a deeper understanding of our world. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers' Edition brings this classic text to a new generation (and their parents and teachers) who will welcome and value its honesty, its humor, and its integrity.

©2019 James W. Loewen (P)2019 Recorded Books

Excellent homeschool resource

From a veteran homeschooler of over 20 years, use this book to right wrongs and teach a less Euro-centric, nationalist Am history.

Eye opening

this was an eye-opener for me amazing facts some I knew that he went into more depth and even I knew and I pride myself on finding the weird historical facts too bad we didn't learn this earlier

Absolutely mind-blowing

My history lessons were nothing like this... but then again... I was taught in predominantly black schools, using text books that looked like they were from the 60's... so ... there goes that. Excellent job. I have a lot of homework to do.

Wish I had this 50 years ago!

Loewen makes history interesting. A great read/listen for anyone who found history boring and did not retain much. I look forward to his other books.

Who’s to say?

After reading Lies My Teacher Told Me, I really don’t know the truth about the historical content covered in this book any better than when I started. And, that’s a good thing.

My takeaway is that I accept the majority of content in student’s history books are written with the intent to sell history books. That means the history books have to espouse a sanitized-patriotic-Eurocentric-America is the greatest country attitudes, or school systems won’t buy them.

After reading this book I don’t blame the history text book writers or publishers, I don’t blame the school boards or teachers. Nope!!! Shame on ourselves for not demanding more from the rich lessons a more critical historical prospective can offer.

Thanks for the read… well done! I’ll be giving it to my grandson in hopes that he can broaden his views.