Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got… (2007)

I had to read this for my History 271 class at university, and it was a really well done book (it has been a while since I read it, so I’m doing a not very insightful review).
I honestly liked how Lowen wrote, and his writing was easy to understand; he also keeps all of the events understandable without stopping to the overly obvious statements about the events.
I highly recommend this book as a must read! ( )

A real eye opener, this book will disabuse readers of the notion that American history is a straight line of progress, and that their high school textbooks were any good at presenting it. ( )

Whoa...a must read for anyone who loves history but need to hear multiple perspectives. It is important that we investigate what we have taken as fact because there are always multiple sides/perspectives. ( )

I had a hard time getting into this book. I hoped that the second chapter would be better, but he continued to harp on the the same theme of all the bad things that happened under the hands of our "heroes." True or not, I just didn't get into it. ( )

Lies My Teacher Told Me takes several chapters to delve into fascinating historical subjects, focusing especially on the neglected narratives of two particular groups: African Americans and Native Americans. I thoroughly enjoyed the debunking of the reconstruction corruption myth, and the attention paid (and due) to John Brown. The book challenged me to wonder what an American History would look like if it didn't favor white history over all others, and took an honest assessment of the contributions of Native Americans, as well as African slaves, to the creation of what we now know as the United States. The book also introduced me to a couple of concepts that had eluded me, but are awe inspiring.

Tri-Racial Isolates, for example, were the bands of escaped African slaves and poor whites who joined up with the nearly plague-obliterated Native Americans to resist the expansion of the imperial project of the United States, and played a major role however other-ized they were by the dominant narrative of frontier savages. These people were at times called Seminoles, Cimarrons, Maroons, and other names.

The Requirement was a document read, in Spanish, to populations of Native Americans as they were met by the Spaniards that exposes the utter self-conscious brutality of the conquest of the Americas: "But, if you do not [...convert to Christianity immediately...:], and maliciously make delay in it, I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter into your country, and shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we can [...:] we shall take you and your wives and your children, and shall make slaves of them, and as such shall sell and dispose of them [...:] we shall do you all the mischief and damage that we can, as to vassals who do not obey, and refuse to receive their lord."

But I think the most useful parts of the book weren't the pop history re-telling of the stories, which after all can be found in many other forms elsewhere, but the study of how we are affected by this loss of history, and glimpses of what our history would be if we took the positions of those other than the Europeans when composing our nations' history. I am struck by the Vietnam exercise that the author did with his undergraduate class, where because of their socialization and their relative allegiance to the upper classes, they believed that the more poorly educated were hawks, when in fact the opposite was true. The use of education as building allegiance and socializing youth is an important concept to take away from this book.

The book also took careful assessment of the day-to-day resistance of students to learning caustic and false material. As the author states, "we must salute young people for more than mere ignorance. This is resistance raised to a high level." Students rarely do the work required of them, preferring instead to do the bare minimum, slowing the pace of the class with work slow-downs and evasion techniques. By literally refusing to learn even the most basic facts put forth in the toxic classes of US History, students all over the US have opposed the whitewashing of their own history, whether they knew they were doing it or not. Day-to-day resistance doesn't threaten the system, but it does grind the system to a crawl.

The book told how high school students today loathe history as dead facts and drop it from their curriculum as soon as they get the chance, never to pick it up again. I can remember my senior year of high school being totally delighted by the new-found ability to drop history in favor of yet another lab science class. This is pretty ironic, given that as soon as I realized what an amazing source of inspiration and strength history was, I was constantly reading history books, and taking college-level classes. In contrast to the book's author's recommendations, however, it took being involved in struggle against first the Iraq War, and then against capitalism and the state, in order for me to get interested in history. After months of worrying that no one had ever attempted to uproot the vicious system we are living in today like I was attempting, I happened upon the book A People's History of the United States, and it provided and still provides no end of comfort and courage.

When my parents recommended this book to me, they told me that it helped them understand my perspective on the world and specifically of US History. That is a pretty resounding endorsement, given that whereas my mother has always been pretty open to learning things about US History that detracted from the dominant narrative fairy-tale, my father's position has ossified (as wealthier older men's politics tend to do) around liberal democrat dogma and the realm of the "politically possible." That he took the time and chance, when one day I left it at their house, to burn the audio CDs and then transfer it to my ipod, and then insist I listen to it, is a testament to the book's ability to reach even skeptical audiences.

Available (e-book style) at:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22590218/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Me ( )