Lies My Teacher Told Me is one of the most important—and successful—history books of our time. Having sold nearly two million copies, the book won an American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship. Now Rebecca Stefoff, the acclaimed nonfiction children's writer who adapted Howard Zinn's bestseller A People's History of the United States for young readers, makes Loewen's beloved work available to younger students.
Essential reading in our age of fake news and slippery, sloppy history, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers' Edition cuts through the mindless optimism and outright lies found in most textbooks that are often not even really written by their "authors." Loewen is, as historian Carol Kammen has said, the history teacher we all should have had. Beginning with pre-Columbian history and then covering characters and events as diverse as the first Thanksgiving, Helen Keller, the My Lai massacre, 9/11, and the Iraq War, Loewen's lively, provocative telling of American history is a "counter-textbook that retells the story of the American past" (The Nation).
This streamlined young readers' edition is rich in vivid details and quotations from primary sources that poke holes in the textbook versions of history and help students develop a deeper understanding of our world. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers' Edition brings this classic text to a new generation of readers (and their parents and teachers) who will welcome and value its honesty, its humor, and its integrity.
Lies My Teacher Told Me is one of the most important—and successful—history books of our time. Having sold nearly two million copies, the book won an American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship. Now Rebecca Stefoff, the acclaimed nonfiction children's writer who adapted Howard Zinn's bestseller A People's History of the United States for young readers, makes Loewen's beloved work available to younger students.
Essential reading in our age of fake news and slippery, sloppy history, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers' Edition cuts through the mindless optimism and outright lies found in most textbooks that are often not even really written by their "authors." Loewen is, as historian Carol Kammen has said, the history teacher we all should have had. Beginning with pre-Columbian history and then covering characters and events as diverse as the first Thanksgiving, Helen Keller, the My Lai massacre, 9/11, and the Iraq War, Loewen's lively, provocative telling of American history is a "counter-textbook that retells the story of the American past" (The Nation).
This streamlined young readers' edition is rich in vivid details and quotations from primary sources that poke holes in the textbook versions of history and help students develop a deeper understanding of our world. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers' Edition brings this classic text to a new generation of readers (and their parents and teachers) who will welcome and value its honesty, its humor, and its integrity.
Reviews-
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July 31, 1995
Loewen's politically correct critique of 12 American history textbooks-including The American Pageant by Thomas A. Bailey and David M. Kennedy; and Triumph of the American Nation by Paul Lewis Todd and Merle Curti-is sure to please liberals and infuriate conservatives. In condemning the way history is taught, he indicts everyone involved in the enterprise: authors, publishers, adoption committees, parents and teachers. Loewen (Mississippi: Conflict and Change) argues that the bland, Eurocentric treatment of history bores most elementary and high school students, who also find it irrelevant to their lives. To make learning more compelling, Loewen urges authors, publishers and teachers to highlight the drama inherent in history by presenting students with different viewpoints and stressing that history is an ongoing process, not merely a collection of-often misleading-factoids. Readers interested in history, whether liberal or conservative, professional or layperson, will find food for thought here. Illustrated. -
September 2, 1996
Sociology professor Loewen lambastes history textbooks as both too inaccurate and too bland to engage students. -
Kirkus Reviews
Praise for Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers' Edition:
"Accessible, eye-opening. . . . A cogent argument for studying historical nuances. [Loewen] argues that young people should not be deprived of hearing the incredible truth of American history in service to avoidance of controversy or blinkered, parochial nationalism." - Truthdig “Powerful . . . it serves as a crucial counter-textbook to provide a more realistic and critical narrative about the American past."
- Jesse Hagopian, co-editor of Teaching for Black Lives and high school history teacher “Here is a call to action that will have students furiously turning the pages and inspire them to question everything. Young people: Read this book, and then talk back to your history teacher!"
- Steve Sheinkin, author of Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War “Lies My Teacher Told Me was a big inspiration to me as a young writer, and I'm excited to see this new young readers' edition. Loewen's fascinating book is full of little-known stories, debunked myths, provocative ideas--and, best of all, it challenges readers to think for themselves!"
- Deborah Menkart, executive director, Teaching for Change, and co-director, Zinn Education Project “The young readers' edition of James Loewen's classic text Lies My Teacher Told Me imparts vital history in a thoroughly engaging way. Countless teachers have tossed their textbooks aside after reading Lies My Teacher Told Me and now younger readers will be able to learn the truth about history, including race, land, the climate, foreign policy, political leadership and much, much more."
- Tanya Lee Stone, NAACP Image Award winner and Sibert medalist “True stories--otherwise known as history--need to be told transparently, in all their messy, marvelous, multi-faceted glory. Loewen's Lies tells the truth to young readers, creating a new crop of critical thinkers and active citizens."
- James Goodman, professor of history at Rutgers University, Newark, and Pulitzer Prize finalist “James Loewen's book is a lively and trustworthy guide to what's wrong with the way we teach history, starting with the textbooks we ask our students to read in school. That students find him irresistible is not hard to explain. Loewen himself is forever young at heart: energetic, curious, skeptical, irreverent, and yet deeply idealistic. Artfully adapted for young readers by Rebecca Stefoff, the text has not been dumbed down one bit."
