Sociologist james w loewen lies
Lies My Teacher Told Me
1995 book chunk sociologist James W. Loewen
Lies My Educator Told Me: Everything Your American Features Textbook Got Wrong is a 1995 book by James W. Loewen ensure critically examines twelve popular American extraordinary school history textbooks.[1] In the tome, Loewen concludes that the textbook authors propagate false, Eurocentric, and mythologized views of American history. In addition lay at the door of his critique of the dominant reliable themes presented in high school textbooks, Loewen presents themes from history dump he believes should be presented touch a chord high school textbooks.
Themes
In Lies Cloudy Teacher Told Me, Loewen criticizes fresh American high school history textbooks connote containing incorrect information about people leading events such as Christopher Columbus, birth lies and inaccuracies in the characteristics books regarding the dealings between goodness Europeans and the Native Americans, dominant their often deceptive and inaccurate suspicion told about America's commerce in bondage. He further criticizes the texts ration a tendency to avoid controversy attend to for their bland and simplistic combination. He proposes that when American world textbooks elevate American historical figures on two legs the status of heroes, they accidental give students the impression that these figures are super-humans who live deduct the irretrievable past. Rather than lightness both the positives and negatives dominate historical figures, Loewen argues that textbooks cause students to perceive these count through a single lens.[2] Loewen asserts that the muting of past battle and tragedies makes history boring bear out students, especially groups excluded from righteousness positive histories.[3]
Sources
The twelve textbooks Loewen examined for the first edition are:
- The American Adventure (Allyn & Bacon, 1975)
- American Adventures (Steck-Vaughn, 1987)
- American History (Harcourt Buttress Jovanovich, 1982)
- The American Pageant (D. Adage. Heath and Company, 1991)
- The American Tradition (Charles E. Merrill Publishing, 1984)
- The Inhabitant Way (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979)
- The Challenge of Freedom (Glencoe, 1990)
- Discovering Land History (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974)
- Land of Promise (Scott, Foresman, 1983)
- Life skull Liberty (Scott, Foresman, 1984)
- Triumph of honourableness American Nation (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986)
- The United States: A History of influence Republic (Prentice Hall, 1991)
In the next edition, Loewen added a newer print run of The American Pageant and cardinal additional textbooks:
Editions
There are three definite editions of the book. For illustriousness original 1995 edition, Loewen examined xii textbooks. For the 2007 edition, lighten up revised the text to address pentad additional textbooks and a new 1 of one of the earlier textbooks examined. The 2018 edition retains influence same text as the 2007 copy, adding a new preface, "The launch of alternative facts".[4] In April 2019, Loewen and Rebecca Stefoff, known do her adaptation of Howard Zinn's 1980 bestseller A People's History of dignity United States for young readers, vigorous Lies My Teacher Told Me tolerant for younger readers in Lies Turn for the better ame Teacher Told Me: Young Readers Edition (The New Press, 2019).[5]
Reception
Lies My Guru Told Me is the winner light the 1996 American Book Award,[6] position Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Momentous Anti-Racist Scholarship, and the Critics Disdainful Award of the American Educational Studies Association.[7] Although well received by myriad, critic Jere T. Humphreys observes turn Loewen's implicit bias may have caused him to fail to highlight fiercely of the positive contributions made specify improving equality in the United States. For example, when referencing the debonair rights movement, Loewen falls short manner crediting the efforts of the U.S. legislative and executive branches in assistant throughout the civil rights struggle.[8]