Lies My Teacher Told Me Book Review

Izenet Renteria

28 April 2016

Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything  Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: The New Press, 2007.

From everything we were taught on history in high school, have you ever wondered if the books students read were telling the truth? The book Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen enlightens some of American history. Loewen makes a case on how the history textbooks used in high school are teaching the wrong facts. Professor Loewen, who’s written five other books and is an expert in race relations, begins “Lies my Teacher Told Me” with a clear-cut claim: "High school students hate history" (1). Using 18 history textbooks, Loewen highlights obtrusive omissions from the texts. The events Loewen describes are what he calls the “Disney version of history” and those are the versions that school have always taught. All while the actual history stories are much more interesting rather than their biased presentation in classrooms.

Loewen explains how students consider history irrelevant, because it is boring to them. Loewen believes that textbooks present a confusing collection of information, and at the same text books present the stories with specific, straightforward facts that encourage patriotism..  Loewen argues that by doing so it diminishes history to ‘a gray emotional landscape of devoted duty rather than a spectacular collaboration of all the events in history. Loewen uses different events as examples to open reader’s eyes to the actual truth of history. One of the major keys is that history books not only omit valuable suspenseful information that makes history interesting, but the lies told are sought out to make American history tremendously positive, which in actually is a problem. Loewen examined high school history textbooks, and every problem, conflict or issue in America’s history has came down to some problems existing, but in the end Americans always overcome.

One of Loewen chapters focuses on President Woodrow Wilson and the lies told in history books. President Wilson is remembered for the effort he made to bring together the world in a League of Nations that followed America’s entry into World War I. For instance, Textbooks may (but don’t) describe Wilson’s Latin American actions a “Bad Neighbor Policy” (24). Instead the texts find ways to let the hero off the hook. Although in the books it seems certain that Loewen did not cause the invasions, it is extremely vague as to who did. Loewen explains how many history books are vague with details that could cause America or Americans to look not so much like heroes. By doing so, students fail to actually learn the truth about their own history and continue to believe that in American history nothing wrong was ever done.

Loewen goes into the Vietnam War and how the history event is attenuated in text books. Vietnam War itself is a complex issue and Loewen explains how most texts attempt to quell the anger of those who chose to remember only the bright side of the war. Loewen exposes some facts on how more bombs were dropped by the military in Vietnam than in all theaters of WW II put together, which demonstrated the way authors ignore conflicts that dull America's image. History books use non-confrontational images, which fail to capture a student’s attention. Loewen also mentions how almost twenty-five percent of students believe the Vietnam War was fought between South and North Korea, exposing a deep discrepancy in educational systems.

Loewen continues to talk about how students lack so much knowledge in facts and aspects that give history a different view. Loewen uses Helen Keller as an important figure in history that is undervalued by history books. Loewen claims that in classrooms all students know that Keller was a blind and deaf girl. Most of them have the knowledge that a teacher named Anne Sullivan befriended Helen. Most students even know that she learned to read and write and even to speak. However, only a few students in classrooms know that Keller was the first deaf-blind person to graduate from college. But regarding to what come about next, about the entire part of her adult life, they are all unaware. To ignore the sixty-four years of Keller’s life or to “encapsulate them with the single word humanitarian is to lie by omission” (20).  Keller managed to change the lives of thousands of people. She traveled the world and brought hope and courage to those who needed it, yet students know only the surface facts of her life. History books omitting all the fascinating aspects of Keller’s life gives the students no reason to be enthused by her or give them a reason to learn more of her; students only learn what classroom textbooks teach and texts fail to capture the whole astonishing life of Helen Keller and many other important figures