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Lies My Teacher Told Me

Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

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Lies My Teacher Told Me

By: James W. Loewen
Narrated by: Brian Keeler
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About this listen

 This national best seller is an entertaining, informative, and sometimes shocking expose of the way history is taught to American students. Lies My Teacher Told Me won the American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship.

James W. Loewen, a sociology professor and distinguished critic of history education, puts 12 popular textbooks under the microscope, and what he discovers will surprise you. In his opinion, every one of these texts fails to make its subject interesting or memorable. Worse still is the proliferation of blind patriotism, mindless optimism, and misinformation filling the pages.

From the truth about Christopher Columbus to the harsh reality of the Vietnam War, Loewen picks apart the lies we've been told. This is a book that will forever change your view of the past.

©1995 James W. Loewen (P)2002 Recorded Books, LLC Americas Education United States World American History

Critic reviews

" Lies My Teacher Told Me goes beyond recounting fallacies of history and correcting American image: it surveys social issues misreported, ideas misrepresented, and encourages students of history to think about not only the facts, but the reporting which embellishes and colors their presentation. An invaluable guide for the reader." ( Midwest Book Review)
"An extremely convincing plea for truth in education." ( San Francisco Chronicle)
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Beautifully read and giving fascinating insights into American history. Cannot fail to make you annoyed at the way history has so far been taught. The only downside is that author, by his own admission, fails to look into the history of two important social groups in American history: women and Hispanics. That would have made it perfect but nevertheless Loewen does inspire you to read further and in effect to be your own historian. Highly recommended.

Inspiring

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Well written, well read, critique of the school history textbooks. It is not a history book. though it has plenty of interesting history facts that many may find informative or even eye-opening, these are not the purpose of the book. The main purpose is to demonstrate the faults of the ways history is taught to children and analyse reasons and consequences of these methods. Important and thought provoking text.

Very illuminating

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great book! but please fix the chapters start/end, audible, as now finding the start is difficult.

great book! but please fix the chapters start/end/

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I really enjoyed this book, it was thought provoking and well read. Its main premise is how the teaching of history by text book is killing the subject, which wouldn't be so bad if the text books were not just full of rubbish history.
The examples are told with humour but it can be a little repetitive.

Thought provoking.

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speaking as a British graduate, we Europeans are freq astonished at how the richest nation on earth has such a low level of knowledge: of world affairs, of their own country's peoples and its (true) history.

It's because the education system, even more than the UK's, is there to keep the people ignorant, and to discourage intellectual curiosity.

The rest of the world's appalled at how big tech is monetising ignorance and hatred, and the 'educated' elites are bankrolling and encouraging, I'm sorry, utter idiots into high office.

It's deliberate, to keep the people down, in their place, and poor.
The school system is utterly corrupt, using only select textbooks that unquestioningly repeat the white man's supremacy lie.

Science has no chance when ordinary Americans are not taught how to fact check, how to differentiate btwn primary & secondary evidence, how to recognise bias, or how to challenge inaccurate information.

What an eye opener, and how depressing.

this explains so much

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