Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

“People have a right to their own opinions, but not to their own facts.” - James W. Loewen (p. 358). American history textbooks present a series of facts to be memorized. These thousand-page tomes are long-winded, boring, and largely inaccurate in an attempt to make the United States look like the ‘international good guy.’ A kind of Salvation Army to the rest of the world (p. 222). Textbook authors, who are largely farmed out after their first editions, avoid controversy and discussion in their books in an attempt to please parents, adoption boards, and publishers across party lines. In doing so, the truth gets lost because the narrative presents “a nation without sin…merely leaving students ignorant [and] unable to understand why others are upset with us.” (p. 269) After all, “to maintain a stratified system, it is terribly important to control how people think about that system.” (p. 304) The positioning of our history textbooks also fuels American students’ ethnocentrism - the belief that ours is the finest society in the world and all other nations should be like us.” (p. 268-269). But are we really the best? Have we truly done nothing wrong? “Textbooks exclude conflicts or real suspense. They leave out everything that might reflect badly upon our national character” (p. 5), from stealing land from Native Americans to lying about weapons of mass destruction. “Perhaps openly facing topics that seem divisive might actually unify Americans across racial, ethnic, and other lines” (p. 338). Reading the truth about our country’s history is uncomfortable, and while “feeling good is a human need, it imposes a burden that history cannot bear without becoming simpleminded” (p. 131). Wading into discomfort allows us to experience an emotional reaction, and “emotion is the glue that causes history to stick” (p. 342).

Pretty transparent in some of its ideology, but still well worth reading.