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Table of Contents for Lies Across America Introductory Essays In What Ways Were We Warped? Some Functions of Public History The Sociology Of Historic Sites Historic Sites Are Always a Tale of Two Eras Hieratic Scale in Historic Monuments The Far West 1. Alaska Denali (Mt. McKinley): The …
Introduction to Lies Across America In What Ways Were We Warped? When I was a boy on our annual summer vacation trips, the family car seemed to stop at every historic marker and monument. Maybe yours did too. Dad thought it was “good for us,” and I suppose in a way it was. Little did …
Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong Lies My Teacher Told Me shows how Americans get a distorted understanding of their past in their high school years. Unfortunately, when they leave school, their miseducation continues. Lies Across America: What Our Historic Markers and Monuments Get Wrong shows how our shrines of public history suffer from similar …
Readers and Critics Respond to Lies Across America “A great book, a fun book, and an important book.”– Ira Berlin, Department of History, University of Maryland Responding to a question on the Public History Discussion List:“Can anyone suggest recent studies that document the cultural or social value of … historic sites, museums, and similar activities?” …
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Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong Loewen compiled his broadest analyses of what we get wrong in our public history – our monuments, museums, and historical markers; the historical names we give to public places, buildings, and streets; the people we celebrate by naming mountains, streams, and lakes for them; and the …
Q. What Did Students Say About Lies? Students took matters into their own hands after the first edition of Lies came out in 1995. I heard from some of them. A fourteen-year-old in South Dakota wrote to tell me what she thought of Lies My Teacher Told Me and another of my books, Lies Across America. “These are EXCELLENT books,” she …
Essay 8: Problematic Words about Native Americans Recognizing that inaccurate history often subtly promotes continuing white supremacy, the National Education Association (NEA) commissioned these articles and has posted some of them in slightly different form at its website. I thank Harry Lawson and others at NEA for the commission, for editorial suggestions, and for other assistance. …
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Best-Selling Book by a Living (as of 2020) Sociologist! High school students hate history. When they list their favorite subjects, history always comes in last. They consider it the most irrelevant of 21 school subjects; bo-o-o-oring is the adjective most often applied. James Loewen spent two years at the Smithsonian Institute surveying twelve leading high …
Essay 13: American Indians as Mascots Recognizing that inaccurate history often subtly promotes continuing white supremacy, the National Education Association (NEA) commissioned these articles and has posted some of them in slightly different form at its website. I thank Harry Lawson and others at NEA for the commission, for editorial suggestions, and for other assistance. Across …
Media Stories, Reviews, and Comments aboutLies My Teacher Told Me Surely the most helpful quotation about Lies My Teacher Told Me is this one: “Every teacher, every student of history, every citizen should read this book.” — Howard Zinn, author, A People’s History of the United States. Shortly after Lies My Teacher Told Me first …