Lies My Teacher Told Me Summary

Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James W. Loewen, explores the failings of the traditional American historical education. It addresses the portions of history most textbooks willfully ignore, the overly optimistic and nationalistic narrative these selected events tell, and the unfortunate results of these inadequacies. For a subject, which encompasses every interesting event that has ever occurred, to be considered boring by the average student, something must be terribly wrong. Particular points of interest Loewen covers are the process by which historical figures are made uninteresting, the complicated and often unmentioned aspects of the European discovery of the Americas, the downplay of the importance of ideas and beliefs, and the glorification

More often than not, the narrative is one of extreme positivity, removing controversial facts about otherwise complicated individuals and making them seem to be heroes. This process is one of the reasons students perceive history as a boring subject. Reading about an infallible subject is entirely uninteresting, while a realistic subject, complete with both flaws and strengths, is much more likely to hold a reader’s attention. An example Loewen uses to illustrate this is Helen Keller. A traditional history textbook glosses over the nuances of her life, describing her more as a miracle than a person. While her accomplishments as a blind and deaf woman are amazing, they are not the only things she ever did. She was, in fact, a controversial political figure. If a standard American history textbook was the only source of information, her radical socialist beliefs and support of the Soviet Union would be entirely unknown. At the time, the revelation of her economic beliefs was scandalous. At the height of her fame, the public’s opinion of Keller as a role model was reversed. Yet, this is rarely, if at

Loewen suggests that the American educational system gives a disproportionate amount of importance to individual people and specific dates, compared to the ideas and beliefs that motivated these people. This is made particularly worse by the large percentage of American history in which ideas and beliefs played a large and important role. For example, any American history student who payed an ounce of attention in their class could list george Washington, Paul Revere, and 1776 when asked about the American Revolution, but very few are likely to explain it as an ideological war between traditional British monarchy and democracy. As important as it is to know the names and dates, George Washington did not singlehandedly win the war, the American people, motivated by their belief that British rule had to end, won the war. Another example of this is John Brown. Textbooks frequently discuss what his actions were, but, instead of providing examples of his writings or quotes, they often simply label him a madman or a religious fanatic. Brown was aware of his actions, and he had his reasons for doing so, yet these are rarely explored in a textbook. Without understanding the reasons behind the actions of important historical figures, the actions lose all significance and become an uninteresting fact to be memorized, rather than the, otherwise interesting,