It’s only been a few years since I discovered I love American history, and one of the more interesting books I’ve read on the topic is “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” by James W. Loewen.

Now, I don’t like the title. The title is a turn-off. It makes you think this is going to be one of those liberal-guilt history-revisionist things, where all of a sudden the Civil War was fought over things other than slavery, and where every hero in American history was actually a bad guy.

What the book actually is, is an indictment of high school history textbooks. Loewen scrutinized a dozen of the most widely used ones and found they all have some things in common: They’re boring, they whitewash everything, and they get a lot of things wrong. The result is that most American students cite history as one of their least favorite subjects, and much of what the average American citizen “knows” about our country’s past isn’t true (or is true but is only the tip of the iceberg).

Continue reading…