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    Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition
    Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition
    Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition
    Audiobook17 hours

    Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition

    Written by James W. Loewen

    Narrated by L.J. Ganser

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    "Every teacher, every student of history, every citizen should read this book. It is both a refreshing antidote to what has passed for history in our educational system and a one-volume education in itself." -Howard Zinn A new edition of the national bestseller and American Book Award winner, with a new preface by the author Since its first publication in 1995, Lies My Teacher Told Me has become one of the most important-and successful-history books of our time. Having sold nearly two million copies, the book also won an American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship and was heralded on the front page of the New York Times in the summer of 2006. For this new edition, Loewen has added a new preface that shows how inadequate history courses in high school help produce adult Americans who think Donald Trump can solve their problems, and calls out academic historians for abandoning the concept of truth in a misguided effort to be "objective." What started out as a survey of the twelve leading American history textbooks has ended up being what the San Francisco Chronicle calls "an extremely convincing plea for truth in education." In Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W. Loewen brings history alive in all its complexity and ambiguity. Beginning with pre-Columbian history and ranging over characters and events as diverse as Reconstruction, Helen Keller, the first Thanksgiving, the My Lai massacre, 9/11, and the Iraq War, Loewen offers an eye-opening critique of existing textbooks, and a wonderful retelling of American history as it should-and could-be taught to American students.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJun 4, 2019
    ISBN9781980042587
    Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition
    Author

    James W. Loewen

    James W. Loewen (1942–2021) was the bestselling and award-winning author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, Lies Across America, Lies My Teacher Told Me About Christopher Columbus, Sundown Towns, and Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers’ Edition (all from The New Press). He also wrote Teaching What Really Happened and The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White and edited The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader. He won the American Book Award, the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship, the Spirit of America Award from the National Council for the Social Studies, and the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award.

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    Reviews for Lies My Teacher Told Me

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    • 1/5
      'People will lie to defend their ideology.'
      Louwen is no exception.
      'The American people, I am convinced have great qualities.' Unfortunately, Americans have been made ignorant by the Swamp. Where Louwen has it correct is our educational system. The sophistry of his talent leads one to believe he has the cure for American ignorance and lack of critical thinking skills. Strangely, it is all for show. Louwen is 'The Fixer.' Sent in by vested interests to maintain a corrupt system. While appearing to be the solution. At first that might seem odd but as you read or listen to his vapid thinking listen to the words he uses. Listen to what he states as facts that are no more than opinions.
      'When words lose their meaning then people lose their freedom.' Examples: 'free,''capitalism,' 'civil'. He doesn't define capitalism, He repeats the false narrative of the American 'Civil War.' There was nothing civil about it. The south was not out to take over US. They were people entitled by the constitution to leave the union. It was in fact a revolutionary war. A war for independence. Lincoln didn't fight to 'free' the slaves when Lincoln conscripted young men to go fight and die to preserve the union is NOT a fight to 'free.' It was enslavement. And the end of individual freedom in America. Be a critical thinker except.. he expects you to accept his fallacies of logic. He makes the assumption that you too have an anti capitalist mentality. And actually he would be right. The thing is he doesn't use critical thinking to explain what capitalism is. He doesn't tell you that the root cause of your anticapitalist mentality is the result of government schools. The result of democracy.
      He doesn't get to the heart of the issue. He avoids it.

      Louwen is tampering with the system as W E Deming would say. The system is to take care of all of us. In Loewen's world only the upper echelon bureaucrats are rewarded.

      That is his intent. He is not out to fix the system. He wants to make it worse. And by worse he wants more bureaucrats. Because remember. Bureaucrats stand for honesty. Bureaucrats are not greedy. Bureaucrats are the high priests. Trust him.

      Would you trust a higher ordered bureacrat with the truth? Do you enjoy following the orders of bureaucrats? By osmosis, by fear (IRS, EPA, FBI, Dept Homeland security, TSA) by gov school education, by the blather of movies, tv, MSM you come to think bureaucrats (therefore government as a god) are a gift. Bureaucrats are not greedy. Bureaucrats exist to serve you. I doubt in public school you ever learned more than that previous sentence. I doubt that Louwen ever carried on a critical examination of bureaucrats. After all,
      Louwen is one of the 'high priests of state idolatry.' He doesn't tell you that does he? Loewen doesn't describe his success in terms of making government a bigger god. He doesn't explain the Holy Trinity (The state, the bureaucrats, and holy democracy). But if you were to think critically about loewen then you would discover Loewen's whole life has been dedicated to making the state great by making you poor.

      If Loewen really wanted you to think critically he would have you question the very idea of compulsory monopoly government day re education camps aka public schools. He would have you question the very notion of democracy which has the intent of making the intellectual elite like him more powerful and you weaker. Loewen has no intention of damaging the system that has made hiim a hero to fellow bureaucrats.



      Like most people on the left. Loewen is projecting his own lies on to ignorant Americans. 'lies my teacher told me.' Hey! Loewan himself is a teacher. He spent all his life in government managed institutions. Even the Ivy League schools prosper from government. They are not capitalists. They are beneficiaries of taxes and tax free donations. Loewan knows nothing about individual freedom. Loewen resents capitalism. Loewen has lived a completely socialist/ perfected communist life.

      Loewen produced a hymnal to not thinking. The damage Loewen has done is unknowable. His mission whether he can articulate it or not has been to define critical thinkinig as being pretty much the party line. Government is your savior. His critical thinking is as shallow and wide as the great salt flats' lake mirage.

      He expresses that the web is worse than text books. Because on the Web people can choose their stories. That is verboten. He is the one who offers them truth. Stay off the net.

      Eric Hoffer would describe Loewen as "a man of words." His product as i said is ideas. He wants to persuade you to think critically but what he really means is for you to think critically against capitalism.
      And why capitalism? Because capitalism is actually about individualism. It is about self ownership. It is about property rights and freedom. The antithesis of the government approved intellectuals belief system.

      How do I know this? Let's use Louwen's own technique where he has us validate the back ground of the text book writers. So let's do Louwen. I can guess his credentials. Because promoted authors that claim a fix for a crippled system share many of the same characteristics.

      But let me try to be objective. What do you think Loewen's back ground is? I looked it up so you don't have to. Here we have
      1. Ivy League grad (Hahvad)
      2. A Ph D
      3. Studied Sociology
      4. He is/was a teacher
      5. He worked as a bureaucrat
      6.He never actually created anything useful.
      7.His products are ideas.
      8. Publishers and authors award him with honors celebrate
      his works. University profs promote him. It is an incestuous system.
      9. Louwen therefore can be described as an intellectual
      10. Not just any intellectual but a court approved government sanctioned intellectual.
      11. Loewen's pay checks came from government. That means government threatened you with prison if you did not give up your hard earned wealth. Wealth that if you had an option would not have been squandered on an executive bureaucrat.


      He thinks the web is bad because it is filled with 'disinformation.' He means opinions he doesn't approve of. Though he will say the ignorant populace is divided into two camps: The leftist and the rightests. That is so wrong.. When the only camp you ignorant listeners need is his camp. He gives you the critical truth. In today's social world even the right is left. So why is Loewen complaining about left right? Except this: There are factions of leftism. With each mouth piece extolling thei own socialist utopia.
      Leftists have their own version of truth. Louwen wants to lead his version of leftism. There are leftists for islam, leftists for gays, leftists for PoC; for the socialists; for the dying empire builders and war mongers; for the drug warriors; for the anti capitalist Americans that make up most of America and all of the Democrat and RINO parties; for those who hate the idea of individual freedom and private property rights. For those who envy and resent the rich and the successful. When I say even the right is leftists I am referring to RINOs. For example Congressman McCarthy. Or take senator Mitch Mc Connell. They are all in for war with Russia. Even if it costs your future and your hard earned wealth.

      If you praise higher ordered bureaucrats then it begs the question why? In general the answer is most Americans share his anti capitalist mentality . If you don't know why, then let me use Louwen as an example of the 'government sanctioned approved and licensed' historian/intellectual. He is well paid bureaucrat whose job is to spackle over the stench and excrement of reality. There is an army of such annointed intellectuals. It is a multi million dollar industry that 24/7 promulgates the ideation of big government. Let big gov. do your thinking for you.


      If his mission is to teach critical thinking then he failed. He has a smug arrogant attitude. His CC (chief complaint) is the books are not leftist enough. You should do what Lowewn suggests. Check his back ground. His sentences ooze with contempt for truth. You can see it in his rant about 'civil war.'

      I suspect that most of you have to do real work. You must be producers of a useful product or service. That is not how Ivy League men of words work. Their job is to promote the state. Why? Because the state employs them. A PhD in Sociology? Serious? In a free world sociologists would be extinct. Unless hired by some rich guy to deconstruct capitalism. After all Sociology is the study of Socialism. I know this. I have a degree in sociology. Sociologists thrive only in government supported university systems. Sociologists don't believe in the individual. Sociologists believe in the mob, the mass, the state. The individual doesn't interest them. They think you exist for the benefit of the state. And sociologists are the ones that will assign you with NOT your plan.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Must read. Very informative and eye opening. Should be in school curriculums
    • 3/5
      Good base level on why American history classes are fucked, annoyingly milquetoast about its own conclusions at times, bizzarely tries to equate existing white supremacist history courses with hypothetical textbooks that suggest "black people invented everything and white people invented slavery" (which if anything is closer to the truth than what is currently taught).
    • 2/5
      I was hoping it would have more information I didn't know. Some of the information on Woodrow Wilson was new. But I'm already familiar with the information on the Pilgrims, Native American's and the plagues, the founding fathers owning slaves. I found it light on history information. It was way to preachy. Every chapter he reiterates his feelings on how bad history is taught, why it matters and how it should be changed. I got it the first time. I didn't need over and over and over again.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      My rating says more about me than it does about the book. One of the key points I've come away from the book with is that I'm not part of the target audience. This book is written for Americans. Those who have gone through or are going through the US education system. Coming from a different country I wasn't raised on US history. Everything I've learned I've had to research myself thereby getting round the majority of problems this book talks about.

      I can't say the Australian history I learned in school is free from all the same sort of problems but I do believe it was much better.

      This book was interesting but I could only recommend it to those who have experienced the US education system or are interested in it. If you're just interested in actual US history there are books out there which would serve better.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      A decent look at some of the stories behind the stories - the things that don't make it into high school history textbooks. Although bound to be controversial among those who want to keep history clean and tidy, it isn't necessary to accept everything the author says in order to find the stories fascinating and thought provoking. This book just might lead you to do a little further digging on your own, and that can never be a bad thing.
    • 5/5
      This book is a must read for any American. I have lent my copy out to numerous people, all are shocked by its contents, but then they each when on to verify the "new stories" that they had been told, only to discover that these stories are history and their history class had been fiction. It is an eye opening experience.
    • 5/5
      Loewen tells us the real American History story. I knew most of the big things already, but was quite surprised at more than a few details. My favorite moment is when he foreshadows the current administration. Commenting on the state of our government after the Watergate scandal, Loewen predicts, "Since the structural problem in the government has not gone away, it is likely that students will again, in their adult lives, face an out-of-control federal executive pursuing criminal foreign and domestic policies" (p. 229). I was a junior in high school in 1995 (the copyright date of this book) and took US History that year. Now I'm an adult and who is my president? Loewen hit the nail on the head. Loewen was quite hard on high school history teachers and missed a vital point in his critique of why they teach the way they do: testing. You can't skip around and spend a lot of time covering a few incidents in-depth because all of your children would fail the EOC test and that would put your job in jeopardy.