Lies My Teacher Told Me

In this 1995 non-fiction work, author and sociologist James W. Loewen analyzes the contents of twelve textbooks on American history, ultimately concluding that these textbooks distort historical fact in order to create a romanticized, whitewashed view of American history.

Loewen begins by discussing the idea of “herofication,” or taking flawed, real humans and turning them into bland, perfect idols. His two case studies are Woodrow Wilson and Helen Keller. In Keller’s case, the textbooks focus on her inspiring ability to communicate despite being deaf and blind. They ignore her radical political activism, her staunch socialism, and her academic research. Wilson is noted as an important president, but his bigotry towards black Americans and communists is left out. Loewen says herofication is influenced by an aversion to conflict and a desire to speak well of the dead.

In the next several chapters, Loewen lays out the portrayal of racial minorities in American history textbooks, focusing first on American Indians and then on black Americans. In these textbooks, Loewen notes, Christopher Columbus is presented as a fearless explorer who “discovers” the Americas and neglects to mention his role in the enslavement and genocide of the peoples who had already settled those lands. The Pilgrims receive similar treatment, as the textbooks paint these Europeans as settlers in a vast, virtually unpopulated land. Those at the Plymouth settlement are helped by Squanto, an English-speaking native. The textbooks fail to mention that he spoke English because he was formerly a slave. The First Thanksgiving is now an American pageant dedicated to the survival of the Europeans, of God’s good fortune that does not extend to American Indians, who die of smallpox and are pushed into the wilderness. Furthermore, Loewen says, when textbooks bother to discuss native tribes at all, they present a narrative arc showing the tribes’ quaint, peculiar cultural practices and their violent resistance to assimilation into European-American culture.

Loewen moves on the role of black Americans, slave and free, in American textbooks. He explores racial tensions spanning from the first slaves brought to America in 1526, the political career of KKK leader David Duke in 1988, and all the wars, bigoted legislation, and race riots in between. In discussing the antebellum South and the Civil War, Loewen admits that textbooks have changed over the decades. Where once they waffled on how badly slaves were treated and presented economic freedom and states’ rights as the real causes of the Civil War, slavery is now strongly condemned and shown to be the Civil War’s cause. Despite this, textbooks still underplay the Founding Fathers’ slave owning, the effect of discriminatory laws on newly freed black Americans, and sometimes altogether skip from the end of the Civil War to Jackie Robinson. This, Loewen argues, leaves students confused over the complete history of race relations and ignores the discrimination suffered by Irish, Chinese, Catholic, and Jewish Americans, who were all considered “others” by white Protestant society. Without a clear understanding of US race relations, students are left without crucial knowledge needed to improve this problem.

In Chapter 7, “The Land of Opportunity,” Loewen narrows his focus to economic and social class. Textbooks present America as a middle class country, despite the present-day shrinking of that class, and ignore class-based conflicts like Shay’s Rebellion. America is consistently painted as a land of opportunity, deliberately compared to England, with its centuries old class stratifications. Despite this emphasis on settlers leaving family for cheap land out west, the election of populist presidents like Andrew Jackson, and the growth of American wealth after World War II, the textbooks fail to note that inequality has always been present in America. Class discrimination and the enormous advantages upper class Americans have always had are largely omitted from textbooks, something not seen with racial discrimination. When this information is withheld, Loewen argues, working class students will assume their own inferiority.

Next, Loewen addresses the role textbooks play in the context of current events and the kind of people they are designed to mold students into. By presenting the actions of the US government as almost uniformly noble, he says, textbooks encourage students to put huge amounts of trust in their government. With notable exceptions such as Nixon resignation and Clinton’s impeachment, government scandals are absent from the narrative, so students never see instances of corruption such as CIA involvement in South American coups. These omissions lead to more trusting student citizens. Loewen notes that textbooks devote less time to each decade as they progress, with the most recent history being the least explored and explained. When textbooks discuss the Vietnam War, they focus on the controversy at home and leave out the searing images of massacres such as My Lai. The textbooks do not acknowledge how historians disagree on many issues of the recent past, such as the Gulf War, preferring to present easy, absolute truths. The final chapter of a textbook, Loewen discovers, are usually vague and optimistic, preferring not to comment on global warming, Middle Eastern conflict, or growing global inequality.

In his final two chapters, Loewen examines why history is being taught in this way and the consequences of doing so. Textbook publishers, he explains, not only have to appeal to students and teachers, but also to special interest groups and conservative selection boards. They must appeal to large markets like Texas and California, making sure both states are well represented. Large, complicated historical events must be reduced to a chapter or even a page, with little room for nuance. With publishing costs so high, the writing becomes safe, bland, and nationalistic. As a result, students, particularly girls, minorities and the working class, view history as boring and disconnected from their lives. Education, Loewen believes, should teach students how to think. Modern textbooks, missing nuance and key facts, teach students what to think and nothing more. Students will care about history when it connects to their lives, something that will only occur when textbooks stop lying to them.