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The book Lies My Teacher Told Me written by James Lowen presents a comprehensive critical analysis of 12 American history textbooks. This paper presents a summary of the first three chapters of the book and a brief review of the book.
The topic of hero creation in chapter 1 deals with controversial issues related to President Woodrow Wilson or Helen Keller. President Wilson became a hero through the history books while the fact was that he was racial in his outlook and encouraged racial violence among African Americans. This has been exemplified through various events like the Russian civil war and administrative policies of Wilson limited the civil rights of the black community in America. Helen Keller became a hero through these discourses and was hailed as a figure of courage. However, the truth often concealed was the radical socialist inclinations of Keller. Therefore, history textbooks had been used to make mythic heroes for the next generation Americans.
The second chapter demonstrates the deliberate misrepresentation of the 15th century invasion of the Americas and the picture of the Europeans. The creation of myth about the 15th century right from the expedition of Columbus has been criticized in the chapter. Loewen first points out those explorers before Columbus are never mentioned and other important incidents and facts like the Arawaks, African and Phoenician predecessors, Las Casas, etc. The half-truths glorify the oppressors like Columbus and of 15th century European world domination. Therefore, the history of the 15th century does not portray the social and political changes rather present unconnected incidents.
Chapter 3 shows the mythification of the concept of Thanksgiving and the origin of the nation in 1620. The history books start the settlement story of America with the Pilgrims and leave out the Natives and the Spanish. Further, the chapter shows that the idea the history books portray is that the Natives were isolated groups of primitives. Rather Loewen shows that they run interconnected settlements. American history has suppressed all that is awkward. American history was equally violent or oppressive as any other history of the world. However, American history avoids the bad tales and brings forth only the good stories to the students.
The book is an eye-opener to various aspects of American historical mythologies. The point of departure from truth in history textbooks is capable of creating a falsified impression of the facts and this distorts the basic ideas of generations of Americans. The book by Loewen brings out the ideas and beliefs of the past that the government intends to create through discourses of textbooks. The book is essentially a critique of the historical details presented in the textbooks of American schools. The textbooks glorify America and everything American. Further, the textbooks avoid the historical facts to re-create the history of the oppressors (i.e. the Europeans settling in America) and completely avoid the natives. Loewen tries to put forth the argument that national history should be able to invoke pride and national identity among young Americans, but this should not be done through falsification and distortion of truth. Falsification and non-revelation of historical facts deliberately negates the rights of students and their right to knowledge. The book supports the idea that history is written by people ho win the war and those who lose are erased into oblivion. The book also presents a question to the American concept of transparency and information disclosure – if the basic historical facts are deliberately distorted, can the rest of the American public documents like newspapers or government memorandums be trusted? The book by Loewen raises serious questions in the reader’s minds that extend beyond the history textbooks.
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