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Tuesday, 29 August 2006 20:38 |
 | Jeremy Morrison
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Did you know Helen Keller was a radical socialist? That she helped found the American Civil Liberties Union?
Me neither and I was born and raised in the Helen Keller-mecca of northern Alabama. We studied her each year in school, but never ventured beyond the obvious overcome-your-adversities lesson.
In his book "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong," James W. Loewen explores the academic whitewashing of yesteryear. The University of Vermont professor presents a study on how American history has been written ÇƒÓ specifically in high school texts ÇƒÓ and why.
In short, the book is a scathing review of textbook
authors and their motives. Loewen claims that the warts of history have
been wiped away to present the view that America has been ever surfing
the eternal-arc of progress.
This book works on a purely scholastic level. It is well-researched
with extensive documentation and should be required reading for every
history teacher in the country. But of course it never will be ÇƒÓ it
negates a good chunk of their curriculum and shrilly decries the
sunshine and daydreams of feel-good history.
Loewen, in essence, has presented us with an analysis of 12 history
textbooks. He asks what they teach and why. His answer: blind
nationalism. The author uses lots of charts and graphs to convey this.
Itës easy to get bogged down and bored.
So, for those of us who are not a member of academia, the book works on
another level: it is toilet reading. The chapters are divided into tidy
categories, such as "herofication," racism and the first Thanksgiving.
For the casual reader this book acts as a vehicle for obscure ÇƒÓ some
might say subversive ÇƒÓ trivia.
While itës worthwhile to read this book cover-to-cover, it takes a bit
of patience. The writing is fair, but itës easy enough to put down
mid-sentence. Much of the book is dedicated to compare-and-contrast
exercises, with text lifted from the material in question.
And yes, that is the point of Loewenës work, but history textbook
excerpts are no more fun to read than they were in high school. The
saving grace is that these schoolbook pages are ripped back to allow
for more factual-based examination.
But what makes Loewenës version of history more "true" than American
textbooks? Does he not have an agenda, just as the authors of
schoolbooks might? Critics could argue that, as opposed to inflating
America, Loewen goes to great lengths to tear it down. This is a valid
argument. But, historical sources are cited throughout the book, as
well as an extensive reference section. And besides, the X-Files-esque
part of me loves to see the accepted truth trashed.
In addition to studying current textbooks, Loewen also looks into
history primers from the past. Interestingly, history seems to be a
living organism, not fixed in stone but tinged with the perspective of
the day. For instance, the abolitionist John Brown was portrayed as
sane prior to 1890, evidently went insane from 1890 to 1970, then
regained sanity in more-recent, race-progressive days.
Perhaps the most important portion of this book comes in the closing
chapter, when Loewen asks how the teaching of sanitized history affects
students. Obviously, students are put at an educational disadvantage
when presented with selective, or outright false, facts. But what does
it do in the larger scheme of things? For example, if students are
taught that America is always on the right side of wars, can they
reasonably question their countryës involvement in future conflicts?
Loewen allows Richard Nixon to wrap up his argument in a nutshell:
"When information which properly belongs to the public is
systematically withheld by those in power, the people soon become
ignorant of their own affairs, distrustful of those who manage them,
and ÇƒÓ eventually ÇƒÓ incapable of determining their own destinies."
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