Summary of James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 Heroification is a process that makes people over into heroes. Through this process, our educational media turn flesh-and-blood individuals into pious, perfect creatures without conflicts, pain, credibility, or human interest.
#2 Helen Keller was a radical socialist who joined the Socialist party in 1909. She had become a social radical even before she graduated from Radcliffe, and not because of any teachings available there. She became a Wobbly, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, a syndicalist union persecuted by Woodrow Wilson.
#3 Helen Keller was a radical who spent her life fighting for the free speech of others. She was also a socialist, and her conversion to socialism caused a new storm of publicity. She never wavered in her belief that our society needed radical change.
#4 Under Wilson, the United States intervened in Latin America more than at any other time in our history. We landed troops in Mexico in 1914, Haiti in 1915, the Dominican Republic in 1916, and Panama in 1918.

Sujets

• History
• Histoire
• Social History

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 20 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669355847
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11 Insights from Chapter 12 Insights from Chapter 13
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Heroification is a process that makes people over into heroes. Through this process, our educational media turn flesh-and-blood individuals into pious, perfect creatures without conflicts, pain, credibility, or human interest.

#2

Helen Keller was a radical socialist who joined the Socialist party in 1909. She had become a social radical even before she graduated from Radcliffe, and not because of any teachings available there. She became a Wobbly, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, a syndicalist union persecuted by Woodrow Wilson.

#3

Helen Keller was a radical who spent her life fighting for the free speech of others. She was also a socialist, and her conversion to socialism caused a new storm of publicity. She never wavered in her belief that our society needed radical change.

#4

Under Wilson, the United States intervened in Latin America more than at any other time in our history. We landed troops in Mexico in 1914, Haiti in 1915, the Dominican Republic in 1916, and Panama in 1918.

#5

Wilson’s invasions of Latin America are better known than his Russian adventure. Textbooks do cover some of them, and it is fascinating to watch textbook authors attempt to justify them.

#6

The United States effectively made colonies of Nicaragua, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and several other countries during the first two decades of this century. Wilson’s reaction to the Russian Revolution solidified the alignment of the United States with Europe’s colonial powers.

#7

Only four of the twelve history textbooks I reviewed accurately described Wilson’s racial policies. They all gave only a sentence or two about his racism.

#8

If Americans had learned from the Wilson era the connection between racist presidential leadership and public response, they might not have put up with a reprise on a smaller scale during the Reagan-Bush years.

#9

Wilson was also anti-black, and he was far and away our most nativist president. He was constantly questioning the loyalty of those he called hyphenated Americans, and the American people responded with a wave of repression of white ethnic groups.

#10

The idea that Americans were tired of Wilson and wanted a return to normalcy in the 1920 election is presented in high school history textbooks as an explanation for Wilson’s defeat. However, historians have been unable to explain the results of that election.

#11

The power of the social archetype is demonstrated by the fact that students actually consider Betsy Ross to be the first American, even though she was not. The producers of filmstrips, movies, and other educational materials on Helen Keller know she was a socialist, but they do not include that information in their exhibits.

#12

The American Pageant, a textbook written by Thomas Bailey, senior author of The American Pageant, clearly knew of the 1918 U. S. invasion of Russia. However, they omit these facts to make certain historical figures sympathetic to as many people as possible.

#13

Textbooks don’t want to touch the idea that opportunity might be unequal in America, or that not everyone has the power to rise in the world. So they leave out Keller’s adult life and make her entire existence over into a vague up by the bootstraps operation.

#14

The effects of Heroification are potentially devastating to students. It keeps students in intellectual immaturity, as they develop no understanding of causality in history. They believe all the historical figures presented in the textbooks are good, and they have no heroes other than the underdog African Americans.

#15

Columbus is the figure with whom the Modern Age begins, and in his character as in his exploits we are given an extraordinary insight into the patterns that shaped the age at its start.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The traditional account of Columbus’s discovery of America is completely false. It was made up by historians in the nineteenth century, who took us on a trip of their own away from the facts of history.

#2

The first mistake made by American history textbooks is to underplay the impact of previous explorers. People from other continents had reached the Americas many times before 1492, and Europeans may have already been fishing off Newfoundland in the 1480s.

#3

Some textbooks still teach the myth that Europe was becoming richer and more tradeable due to the spices it needed to disguise the taste of bad meat, but the truth was that Europe was smaller and poorer in the fifteenth century than it had been in the thirteenth.

#4

The changes in Europe not only prompted Columbus’s voyages, but they also paved the way for Europe’s domination of the world for the next five hundred years. The textbooks do not discuss how these changes led to this outcome.

#5

There were many factors that led to Europe's readiness to embrace Columbus's reports about Haiti. Christianity was one of them, as it allowed Europeans to transport and proselytize their religion. Europeans had also learned how to take over and exploit island societies.

#6

The way American history textbooks treat Columbus exemplifies the tendency not to think about the process of domination. They imply that taking the land and dominating the Indians was inevitable, and this is unfortunate because it ignores the fact that Columbus’s voyages were a splendid teachable moment.

#7

The textbooks do not credit the Muslims with preserving Greek wisdom, but they do credit Henry with inventing navigation and round the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa in 1488.

#8

There are twelve textbooks that cover the history of the United States, and seven of them at least mention the Norse expeditions to America. These daring sailors reached America in a series of voyages across the North Atlantic, establishing communities on the Faeroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland.

#9

The Vikings’ voyages had little lasting effect on the world, but they are included in history textbooks because they give a more complete picture of the past. The Afro-Phoenicians, who are said to have reached the Atlantic coast of Mexico in about 750 B. C. , are also excluded from history textbooks.

#10

The Vikings and the Afro-Phoenicians are just two examples of how human exploration and navigation did not begin with Europe in the 1400s.