Post 4

Lies My Teacher Told Me had several strengths and very few, if any, weaknesses. One if its strengths was that it took topics that were commonly misunderstood by high school students, and explained each individually with plenty of sources to back up what it was saying. Lies also made a point to explain that what historians know about history is not concrete, meaning that our understanding of what happened in history is always changing, and that things accepted as fact one day could be disproved the next. It also did an excellent job of trying to explain history from other points of view besides the Europeans'. For example, it explained parts of Native American history before the Europeans arrived, and how they were affected, instead of just portraying the view that Europeans just discovered the New World and were basically the first ones there. Loewen obviously did his research. He read over 12 US history textbooks to help prepare him for this book, and consistently cited them. Loewen used both primary and secondary sources in this book, but he used primary sources mostly to back up what he was saying about secondary sources, which were mostly textbooks. He was not biased at all throughout this book. He tried to say the truth about whoever he was writing about, no matter how bad it was. He also stuck to his basic purpose if showing where textbooks have gone wrong and suggesting ways for them to get better. So, overall, Lies My Teacher Told Me was a very interesting and well researched book, and I would recommend it to other readers. It enhanced my understanding of politics in America, because it showed how both intentionally and unintentionally biased many politicians are, all because of their misunderstanding of American history. It also helped me understand more about how history has shaped the way American politics work today.