Scan barcode
A review by erinlcrane
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen
3.0
I almost feel bad about giving this 3 stars because I think there’s a time and a place for it. I’ve just read and watched other things that introduced me to most of this information already, so I was largely bored.
One of the reviews I saw said this is an exchange of wrong trivia for right trivia, and that’s a good description. And the result is boring ☺️ As he notes later in the book, students don’t remember a bunch of factoids easily. I think he delivers factoids because he spends much of the book correcting what history books teach… which is factoids.
I do appreciate his core idea - that our grade school history books are currently nationalistic to the point of falsifying and hiding important information.
I got the most out of the chapter about how history textbook publishing works. I didn’t know much of what he shared there, so I found it enlightening.
One of the reviews I saw said this is an exchange of wrong trivia for right trivia, and that’s a good description. And the result is boring ☺️ As he notes later in the book, students don’t remember a bunch of factoids easily. I think he delivers factoids because he spends much of the book correcting what history books teach… which is factoids.
I do appreciate his core idea - that our grade school history books are currently nationalistic to the point of falsifying and hiding important information.
I got the most out of the chapter about how history textbook publishing works. I didn’t know much of what he shared there, so I found it enlightening.