Summary Of Lies My Teacher Told Me

In the book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, author James Loewen talks about historical misconceptions in American school textbooks. Are these actually misconceptions though? What is the author saying about American history when details or whole events are untold? Lowen delves into these deep topics head on and gives examples as he goes. This book is not only intended for those who have read an American history book, but for those who have never heard the truth. Lowen wrote this book in order to uncover and educate; furthermore, this is important because events never told are now brought to light. Using detailed information and facts concerning racism, governmental over-watch, and the Vietnam War, Loewen argues that the American history textbooks

Throughout grade school, especially high school, teachers have always read the historical topics and events verbatim from textbooks for example, the civil rights movement. The abundance of information covered in only a few chapters can become overwhelming at points, but how much of this information is true? Does the textbook skip over important facts that the reader should know prior to reading these chapters? In his book, Loewen emphasizes that a lot of information was missed and left out. A common belief is that the early American colonists established racism and that were ultimately the ones who caused an early downfall of the African race. What the textbooks failed to mention was that Europeans were the first to take advantage of the blacks on our so called “America”. The reason behind this misconception is due to the fact that the period of slavery was so prominent in American history that perhaps the author felt that the main blame for slavery and the conditions of it should fall on American shoulders. U.S. textbooks discuss the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but

The title of the chapter, “See No Evil,” accurately depicts what the textbook companies did to their readers. The U.S involvement in the Vietnam can only be described as far as the textbooks allows its readers to believe. The United States government hid many things from the public eye, including not releasing photos to textbook companies. When these companies published the textbooks, they tried to make it seems as if the actions of the United States army were right and patriotic. Little did the American people know of the horrors that unfolded overseas. An example of what was kept from textbooks is the horrific photos taken during the war. The U.S. did three times as much damage as the Vietnamese did, “nonetheless, not one textbook showed any damage done by our side.” (Loewen 248). The United States government essentially put a veil over the war in order to make our reasons for being over there seem legitimate. Even when the textbooks tell us about an incident, they don’t tell the full truth. For example“…adequate paragraph on Mai Lai… but it never mentions that attacks on civilians were a general problem.” (Loewen 251). The textbooks mention that people in America disagreed with the war, but left out the appalling anti-war chants that were commonly used during protest. The Vietnam War was a war of many secrets that the government kept from the public