Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen
2007 /464 pgs.  History

What a fantastic read.  Dr. Lorwen shows what has been missing in high school history classes for many years.  How textbooks are just a memorization of facts, or lies as the title says, and doesn’t show the ugly side of American History.

When I was in school, I wondered why sections about Slavery, Reconstruction, even World War 1 and others are glanced over.  We didn’t even reach Vietnam in my history class, and I’m sure that would have been a lesson that it was a bad war.  Heck, even the US Constitution isn’t required reading anymore. I started learning how America truly was when I was in graduate school. It was eye opening!

It reads like American is the greatest nation and has no warts at all.  We don’t really want to dwell on anything bad in our History, just the good.  Even our heroes are without faults. We’ve all read the lie about Washington and the Cherry tree.  Our great leaders never did have any bad thoughts or committed any bad actions.

Thomas Jefferson, who authored “all men are created equal,” owned over 300 slaves. However, is it taught in our history classes?  Or do we still revere Jefferson as the 3rd president and important founding father that didn’t own any slaves?

This book is not an all-encompassing Lies book, there are many more that he doesn’t mention, and he even admits it in his second edition. The book’s point is we genuinely are not educated our youth, who will leave school and make decisions about the future of this nation based on false information. 

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in an eye-opening view of a few of the challenging issues that we face in today’s society.  However, be forwarded, you might get a little squeamish if you think America’s perfect.

Enjoy a good cup of coffee and an excellent book!

Lopaka