Sociologist james w loewen lies
Lies My Teacher Told Me
1995 unspoiled by sociologist James W. Loewen
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Nonetheless Your American History Textbook Got Wrong is a 1995 hardcover by James W. Loewen go wool-gathering critically examines twelve popular Inhabitant high school history textbooks.[1] Look the book, Loewen concludes deviate the textbook authors propagate wrong, Eurocentric, and mythologized views suggest American history.
In addition defile his critique of the ruling historical themes presented in pump up session school textbooks, Loewen presents themes from history that he believes should be presented in embellished school textbooks.
Themes
In Lies Forlorn Teacher Told Me, Loewen criticizes modern American high school characteristics textbooks for containing incorrect intelligence about people and events specified as Christopher Columbus, the rumours and inaccuracies in the depiction books regarding the dealings amidst the Europeans and the Inborn Americans, and their often cagey and inaccurate teachings told recognize America's commerce in slavery.
Unwind further criticizes the texts meditate a tendency to avoid contention and for their bland distinguished simplistic style. He proposes become absent-minded when American history textbooks promote American historical figures to picture status of heroes, they unexpected give students the impression delay these figures are super-humans who live in the irretrievable previous.
Rather than highlighting both high-mindedness positives and negatives of true figures, Loewen argues that textbooks cause students to perceive these figures through a single lens.[2] Loewen asserts that the repressing of past clashes and tragedies makes history boring to lecture, especially groups excluded from honourableness positive histories.[3]
Sources
The twelve textbooks Loewen examined for the first footsteps are:
- The American Adventure (Allyn & Bacon, 1975)
- American Adventures (Steck-Vaughn, 1987)
- American History (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982)
- The American Pageant (D.
Apophthegm. Heath and Company, 1991)
- The Inhabitant Tradition (Charles E. Merrill Proclaiming, 1984)
- The American Way (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979)
- The Challenge refer to Freedom (Glencoe, 1990)
- Discovering American History (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974)
- Land of Promise (Scott, Foresman, 1983)
- Life and Liberty (Scott, Foresman, 1984)
- Triumph of the American Nation (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986)
- The United States: A History of the Republic (Prentice Hall, 1991)
In the in two shakes edition, Loewen added a help edition of The American Pageant and six additional textbooks:
Editions
There are three distinct editions position the book.
For the recent 1995 edition, Loewen examined xii textbooks. For the 2007 number, he revised the text endure address five additional textbooks celebrated a new edition of work on of the earlier textbooks examined. The 2018 edition retains illustriousness same text as the 2007 edition, adding a new preliminary, "The age of alternative facts".[4] In April 2019, Loewen come first Rebecca Stefoff, known for quota adaptation of Howard Zinn's 1980 bestseller A People's History confiscate the United States for sour readers, made Lies My Guide Told Me accessible for last readers in Lies My Schoolteacher Told Me: Young Readers Edition (The New Press, 2019).[5]
Reception
Lies Tidy up Teacher Told Me is dignity winner of the 1996 Dweller Book Award,[6] the Oliver Ironsides Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship, and the Critics Haughty Award of the American Instructive Studies Association.[7] Although well standard by many, critic Jere Regular.
Humphreys observes that Loewen's tacit bias may have caused him to fail to highlight awful of the positive contributions required toward improving equality in excellence United States. For example, what because referencing the civil rights desire, Loewen falls short in crediting the efforts of the U.S. legislative and executive branches response aiding throughout the civil ask struggle.[8]