Lies My Teacher Told Me, 2nd Edition

By: Dr. James Loewen

Narrated by: L. J. Ganser

Length: 17 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

"Every teacher, every student of history, every citizen should read this book. It is both a refreshing antidote to what has passed for history in our educational system and a one-volume education in itself." (Howard Zinn)

A new edition of the national best seller and American Book Award winner, with a new preface by the author

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. Having sold nearly two million copies, the book also won an American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship and was heralded on the front page of the New York Times in the summer of 2006.

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 12 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.

©2018 James W. Loewen (P)2019 Recorded Books

essential listening

It will fill you with a righteous indignation, and trust me that's a good thing.

Fascinating

I learned a lot and was fascinated. Definitely recommend it - as we all work to think in a broader diversity view.

Historiography at its Finest

The book was recommended by a colleague, and it doesn’t disappoint. If you enjoy history, sociology, or anthropology then chances are you will enjoy your his book as well. The audio version was so satisfying in fact, that I purchased a physical copy to have and review from time to time. While some might not like hearing about America’s complicated past, particularly as it has to do with racism, sexism, and the sort. Loewen provides a facts based, deep dive into our country’s past, and brings history to life, not by painting a rosy picture but by providing the more interesting historical accounts; Thanksgiving now has a more interesting and arguably, more appropriate reason to be celebrated now! Do yourself a favor and read or listen for yourself.

Important reading

LMTTM is important reading. It addresses the gaps in our delivery of education on history both intentional as well as circumstantial. The title is provocative, but certainly isn’t laying blame at the foot of overburdened teachers without proper support or effective textbooks for the many issues presented. It is a call for us to think critically and to demand that textbooks support that process.

Easy Listen

Quite interesting. And quite true. When facts are omitted from books there’s a big problem. So if you thought there were discrepancies in school books, you’re right.

A must educational read.

I enjoyed reading this from start to finish, I felt like I was in a history class getting an education again.

Shockingly Informative!

When are we going to learn that the truth shall make us free us free. So sorry for today's student. How can you get directions for where you're going if you do not know where you have been? This country has a rich history. It is all important and should all be shared with today's student!

insights you didnt know you needed.

This was an amazing look at the many layers of of this countries educational system and it's controlling forces.

A good start to learning about history

Lies My Teacher Told Me primarily goes over omissions, outright lies, mistakes, uncorrected old information, intentional jingoistic patriotism, and the overall lifeless writing style that always finds its way into school history textbooks while giving you some of the true information on the most mishandled topics. It then attempts to explain why these books are written the way that they are and shares the author's ideas on how history can be better taught as an analysis of root causes. How useful this information will be to you personally will depend on if you have studied history on your own outside of schooling, if you have taken college history courses, and if you make any attempt to listen to or spend time with people that aren't from the US or likely any kind of people interested in political activism.

History, sociology, media literacy, and intersectional feminism have been most of my primary interests for about 17 years, my friends are typically nothing but activists, journalists, and media critics, and I ignored every assignment or book I was given in the terrible charter school I went to primarily staffed by weirdos, white supremacists, and conspiracy theorists to study things on my own. Little information was new to me often at best just adding a few details while omitting some others that go beyond the scope of the thesis. Dr. James Loewen does briefly describe how poor coursework tends to be in history class partly due to the focus on meaningless rote memorization to be forgotten after the multiple-choice question tests, and yes, you can get good history grades completely ignoring the book thanks to those types of questions and a little common sense. Though, he does also mention a time when he asked his college students who fought in the Vietnam war only to be told it was between North and South Korea, so what the average person views as common sense will vary. I was more interested in the book as information on the way that textbooks are written and assigned to schools.

The main focus of the book begins by discussing the heroification of people that are commonly known or treated as American heroes. Similar to the Great Man Theory of history where history is incorrectly portrayed as being shaped by a small number of superior forward-thinking people either dragging the witless common folk forward with them or just leaving their roles out entirely. Heroification is essentially that, as well as intentionally leaving out any details that would make a person seem immoral or like a psychotic mass murderer in the modern world while also creating made-up or gussied up stories about them. The primary subjects were Woodrow Wilson having no mention of him being an avid white supremacist and his imperialist wars in South America that went against his own stated policies, Hellen Keller having no mention of her adult life as an activist, being a supporter of The Soviet Union, and co-founding the American Civil Liberties Union. Christopher Columbus' treatment of natives, all of the false stories that surround his journey created to make him seem more intelligent than those around him and to make him appear more heroic and sympathetic, the effects of Columbus' voyages which led to the Atlantic slave trade. The voyages of Native Americans, Africans, and others that are ignored in order to make European explorers seem more important. Misleading information about the Pilgrims and the lies surrounding and the often offensive way Thanksgiving has frequently been celebrated, and the state of the land and native populations of North America when Colombus and later settlers arrived. The often completely ignored wars fought between settlers, later America, against the Native Americans, and the way Natives have been characterized as barbaric or primitive when the opposite was usually closer to the truth.

The Civil War and events leading up to it are a large focus of the book. How the, more often than not believed, myth that the war was started over state's rights started in more recent times while directly contradicting the southern state's legal battles against State Rights. The portrayal of John Brown as crazy and taking unprovoked violent action in support of emancipation is at odds with the perfectly sane and well-spoken and intelligent speaker who inspired respect from even some of his opponents that he really was. The reconstruction period after the Civil War is covered, dealing with the false narrative often found in textbooks that corrupt greedy northern whites and incompetent former slaves ruined the south. Major motion pictures like The Birth of A Nation and Gone With the Wind helped to give rise to the KKK and racists myths about slavery and the reconstruction period.

The Civil Rights movement focuses on the way that textbooks portray the government as actively trying to help the causes of the movement when, in reality, the FBI and John Kennedy were actively spying on and trying to stop the civil rights movement and its important figures, and how later on one of the only major films focused around the Civil Rights movement, Mississippi Burning, only created more similar propaganda around those events. The coverage, typically complete ignoring, of America's frequent interference and overthrowing or assassinations of countries with democratic and socialist leaders is brought up as well as the US' frequent arming and support of violent dictatorships and terrorist states.
How more modern events like Vietnam and Iraq war are covered becomes a focus, with Vietnam being almost entirely ignored and the brief mentions of the causes of the Iraq war being recycled propaganda that was proven to be lies years ago. The way many of these events are covered is explained through the way events are treated differently if they were likely to have happened within the lifetimes of people that are still living or if those with first-hand knowledge are still around. The older authors of textbooks being influenced by having lived through the events and not wanting to let what could be viewed as a more personal opinion shape the text, as there is always a focus in school textbooks to portray history as a series of factual events that we know the reasons behind 100% instead of as events we are constantly learning new facts about or that require nuance in their discussion to be handled seriously.

The later chapters of the book cover how social class influences the quality of your schooling and education and goes over an exercise he did where he surprised people by showing them that more wealthy and college-educated students tend to be more likely to be war hawks and why their relations to US society and their class makes that more likely to be so. Loewen gives his thoughts on modern schooling and textbook authorship and where he believes the problems lie, which was the subject I found more personally interesting. Covering a variety of subjects like publishers wanting to make money selling their books to as many states as possible (especially the larger ones like California and Texas), the different ways those states choose the books assigned to their schools, interviewed authors stating that they really didn't write the books at all with it being done with low paid workers of the publisher that weren't even qualified for the job and that often plagiarize from other books or that write multiple books or that they personally just weren't aware of some important parts of history, the feeling that reading and writing high school textbooks are beneath real historians, self-censorship of teachers that worry about losing their jobs over upsetting parents if they attempt to have real discussions in class, teachers that don't know anything about history (even telling a story where a large group of teachers didn't know that almost everyone knew the Earth to be round well before Columbus' time) and are given the job as history teachers because it is considered a lower position that can often just be given to one of the PE teachers or coaches to do.

The author shares a more personal story of how he and his colleagues had to sue the Mississippi Textbook Purchasing Board in the 70s when their book was rejected from being used due to having what was said to be too much focus on controversial racial matters. As well as telling people to ask questions in their own research when looking at the writings of others, questions important to anyone with a desire to be more media literate in any subject. Questions such as who wrote this, who did they write it for, who benefits from it, whose views is it sharing, whose views are being left out, what social class are they, where they live, etc. From my experience, following the money, is one of the simplest ways to get many of those answers.

If the above topics interest you, especially if you don't know anything about them the book is well worth a look as a way to get started on learning about US history.

L. J. Ganser's narration does the job well enough. It isn't telling an exciting story where every character gets a unique voice, it's read like a well-spoken lecture that puts the proper emphasis, surprise, jokey/mocking voice on when it calls for it. How many dozens of the times the word, "Indeed," is used is something I am interested in, though that is no fault of the narrator.

I wish I read this sooner!

This book is full of great information. It’s easy to listen to and thought provoking. I can’t wait to read/ listen to the rest of his books.