Lies My Teacher Told Me

[hswarden]

Does anyone have a source for a well-written, methodical review of this book challenging "conventional" American History textbooks? Or for that matter, a source for biographical information on the author, James Loewen?

[Moira in MA]

This may not be what you're looking for, but I seem to remember Diane Ravitch discussing this book in The Language Police in the chapter History: the Endless Battle.

 

I also found this review http://www.criticalthink.info/Phil1301/lieshist.htm

when I googled "lies my teacher told me"

 

HTH

[Guest FranW]

my first suggestion would be American Historical Review or The Historian. My second suggestion would be Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. These usually have general indexes. For information on the author I'd try Dictionary of American Scholars.

 

Good luck in your search.

 

Frances

[Laurie in CA]

has extensive footnotes, 55 pages worth. I guess if you had the book you would be able to check his sources. It certainly is an eye-opening book.

 

Laurie in CA

dd(14) TOG and other stuff

[Mrs Mungo]

Does anyone have a source for a well-written, methodical review of this book challenging "conventional" American History textbooks? Or for that matter, a source for biographical information on the author, James Loewen?

 

Biographical information:

http://www.uvm.edu/~jloewen/

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_W._Loewen

 

http://hnn.us/articles/36914.html

 

Many moons ago when I was first investigating homeschooling and the internet was a much smaller place I emailed back and forth with him a few times. I know he gets equated with Howard Zinn a lot but their writing (IMO) is completely different.

[Laurie in CA]

:iagree:

This may not be what you're looking for, but I seem to remember Diane Ravitch discussing this book in The Language Police in the chapter History: the Endless Battle.

 

I also found this review http://www.criticalthink.info/Phil1301/lieshist.htm

when I googled "lies my teacher told me"

 

HTH

 

I just read this link after I posted and the words "eye-opening" were also used when describing "Lies" (same thing I said). I certainly wouldn't be afraid to read it just because there is a portrayal of events that may disagree or with or are left out of many history texts. That's the reason "Lies" was written. Lowen goes against the grain by choosing to inform the reader of some of these interesting stories. I was shocked at some of the things I read (I have not read the whole book) and was challenged to do some further research. I read parts of it aloud to my children. It's a good book.

 

Laurie in CA

dd(14) TOG and some other stuff

[hswarden]

I have been reading it, but was looking for some criticism of the actual writing, not the stories he tells. When a historian cries "that wasn't the whole story! What you need to know is...." it seems so ironic to me. We can never get the whole story. The crux of history-writing is that you can only tell the story you want to tell. The world could not contain the books that would be necessary to report "the truth," but to call someone's telling a lie seems to me inflammatory. I think Howard Zinn does a much better job of a)sticking to the point, and b) evaluating his own work by the same standard he applies to others.

Anyway, thanks very much for the links.