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James W. Loewen (1942-2021)

We mourn the loss of our friend and colleague and remain committed to the work he began.

To The General Public

You’ll flunk it, but you’ll have more fun flunking it than you did passing any of those multiple-choice history quizzes you took back in high school.

Should we have dropped the atom bomb on Nagasaki? Why did we drop it? What was its impact upon the course of history? U.S. history courses almost never address these questions. Too controversial.

Since it came out in 1995, Lies My Teacher Told Me has drawn much attention from book reviewers, journalists, and just “ordinary” readers. Most comments have been appreciative and most readers have understood the points the book was trying to make.

Works inspired or influenced by Lies My Teacher Told Me include this interesting novel.

This quotation, by German philosopher Friedrich Hegel, is at least as accurate as the old saw by George Santayana.