Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Idaho History > Item 58
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Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong
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by James W. Loewen
Sales Rank: 103853
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List Price: $15.00
$10.20
At Amazon
on 9-16-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 480 pages
Published by: Touchstone; 1st Touchstone Ed edition November 14, 2000
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0684870673
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0684870670
Book Dimensions:
9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
Weighs: 1.2 pounds
Reader Reviews
This review is from: Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong (Hardcover)
If you have any doubts about the lightning rod James Loewen has given us in this book and its predecessor, "Lies My Teacher Told Me," take a look at the few low ratings given by other Amazon readers. The code words are all there -- he's an ivory tower academic, he's anti-confederate, it's all "political correctness," he's racist because he's "anti-white," and so on. Cages have been rattled, it's as simple as that. Some cherished myths go down hard in these books. Anyone who dismisses this as a "doctoral dissertation" from someone in an "ivory tower" hasn't read any dissertations, trust me. These are funny, chatty, entertaining books. (This one in particular is a great browse, because it's broken cleanly into sections about individual monuments.) Loewen's voice is perfect for this tone and subject, not in any way affected or studied; he's a likeable author, and these are enjoyable books. Loewen's overarching theme is that history would be a much more vital, constructive force in American life if Americans were actually exposed to its true breadth and depth. Loewen makes many impassioned appeals to primary sources, to the voices and sentiments of actual participants. He gets at those basic themes in a nicely straightforward, common-sensical way -- by comparing primary sources to the schlock we're given in their place. For my money, the humor and pathos, the melancholy irony, in that comparison is a breath of fresh air. Lies My Teacher Told Me used a comparison of several high school textbooks as its departure point. Here Loewen begins by examining historical markers, asking whether each does an adequate job of describing the history it's meant to include. He compares the words on stone monuments to the words in, say, confederate generals' mouths. Dusty academic argument this ain't. It's just plain fun. (I mean, what are we to make of monuments to confederate dead in Montana? Montana didn't have any soldiers on either side...) To the criticism that Loewen hasn't been prescriptive enough, that he doesn't say what each monument SHOULD include, I would say -- Gee, um, he does. If you read the essays, Loewen goes into extensive discussions about what's missing in many museums and inscriptions. The Nimitz Museum (Museum of the Pacific War) should include, for example, specific quotes from Nimitz about the prospect of invading Japan -- and in any case it shouldn't depict Nimitz as taking a position diametrically opposite from his real one. Also, both this book and Lies My Teacher Told Me have been both general histories and wonderfully ironic lessons in how pressures conspire to prevent real history from reaching people. Dissecting the workings of those whitewashing forces is at least as worthwhile as rewriting the actual texts. Loewen does do both jobs, though, anyway. But hey, don't believe me -- watch the people who want their ... history left alone squirm, and you'll know you should be in on the fun.
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Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong
Available from Amazon
Price: $10.20
Updated on 9-16-2008.
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