When I was a high school junior in New Orleans taking AP American history, my teacher assigned us a paperback book. Slim in contrast to our hulking required textbook, it was a funny, compelling, even shocking read. Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James Loewen, explained how history textbooks got the story of America wrong, usually by soft-pedaling, oversimplifying and burying the thorny drama and uncertainties of the past under a blanket of dull, voice-of-God narration.
The book also taught a lot of history. It introduced me to concepts that still help me make sense of the world, like the "racial nadir" — the downturn in American race relations, starting after Reconstruction, that saw the rise of lynchings and the Ku Klux Klan. In doing so, Lies My Teacher Told Meoverturned one assumption embedded in the history classes I'd been sitting through all my life: that the United States is constantly ascending from greatness to greatness.
The book has racked up many awards and sold around 2 million copies since it was first published in 1995. In a new edition out this summer, James Loewen — now professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Vermont — is championing the cause of critical thinking in the age of fake news.
[For more on this story by ANYA KAMENETZ, go to https://www.npr.org/2018/08/09...-be-used-as-a-weapon]
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