Laith
"[This] is one of those books that radicalizes you", was the most common response I got when I told friends what I was reading. Obviously, I'm quoting them because I can't put it any better. If the extent of your US History knowledge begins and ends with your AP/HS US class, reading this book will drop your jaw. There really are so many omissions that our textbooks have made that, once revealed, force you to reconsider your impression of the country and its decision makers.
Lies My Teacher Told Me might be too strong a title, since technically there aren't all that many outright lies in the texts themselves. Lies mainly deals in filling in the egregious omissions that almost all the texts have retained to this day. These omissions primarily concern things like who discovered America, the Columbian exchange, the Civil War, and Woodrow Wilson being a massive racist piece of shit. More than just backfilling Loewen reveals the pattern, the bias in the types of facts that get pulled from the text. This is half correction of US History-half correction of the education system, and it means that Loewen opines broadly and with little discretion as to what the problems in education are and how to solve them.
I read the 3rd edition, and as the author takes great pains to note, he's changed almost none of the core material between each re-issue. That might seem like a pointless detail but think about it, this was originally published in 1995 and in 30 years all Loewen ever needed to change was his introduction. It speaks to the nature of the facts, namely that they are facts. This book has been right about US History since its inception, and despite critics crying "lib!" for over 30 years, the facts have not changed.
Of course, the political discourse in this country has changed, drastically. If you look at the top reviews for this book on Goodreads, they're extremely critical of the obvious liberal slant to Loewen's commentary, of the abundant "white guilt" that drowns out the discourse on education. Those reviews are from 2008, and within the context of the last decade those complaints seem quaint and bygone. If you still believe the news, here in 2025 we're about to cut the Dept. of Education by executive order, with the soon-to-be unemployed Secretary slated to be Linda McMahon of WWE fame. No, I think a centrist position on education policy has been shown to be one of the appeaser, in the Churchill sense of the word. No, in 2025 Loewen reads like a prophet, his "overtly socialist and liberal leanings" could now be mistaken for wide-eyed sobriety if not outright prescience.
Speaking as someone with a single family home's worth of debt thanks to higher education, I still found some of the things that Loewen teaches to be completely brand new to me. I kind of gave it away at the top, but the fact that we continue to rehabilitate Woodrow Wilson's image completely shook me. I've taken collegiate courses on WW1 with significant focus on Wilson; he'd even made my top 5 presidents list in the past- but I had never been taught about him single-handedly re-invigorating the KKK, or about him re-segregating the government. Despite taking multiple film studies courses, I had no idea that Wilson showed Birth of a Nation as the first film in the White House. Or what about John Brown, my teacher blew completely past him, and this was the same guy who said "I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with blood," literally calling out the civil war in advance. This was the first time that I ever read his words:
"Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments, I say, Let it be done"
Is this the most balanced treatment of US History? Not by a mile. But there's not one word of untruth in this book. The rhetoric can be overly persuasive, if not completely bleeding heart at times, but that doesn't discount Loewen's point to me. Especially when it looks like we'll soon be funding religious private schools with public money. No, this is a book that sets the record straight, a book that has been proven correct at every turn. It could ostensibly radicalize you.
"[This] is one of those books that radicalizes you", was the most common response I got when I told friends what I was reading. Obviously, I'm quoting them because I can't put it any better. If the extent of your US History knowledge begins and ends with your AP/HS US class, reading this book will drop your jaw. There really are so many omissions that our textbooks have made that, once revealed, force you to reconsider your impression of the country and its decision makers.
Lies My Teacher Told Me might be too strong a title, since technically there aren't all that many outright lies in the texts themselves. Lies mainly deals in filling in the egregious omissions that almost all the texts have retained to this day. These omissions primarily concern things like who discovered America, the Columbian exchange, the Civil War, and Woodrow Wilson being a massive racist piece of shit. More than just backfilling Loewen reveals the pattern, the bias in the types of facts that get pulled from the text. This is half correction of US History-half correction of the education system, and it means that Loewen opines broadly and with little discretion as to what the problems in education are and how to solve them.
I read the 3rd edition, and as the author takes great pains to note, he's changed almost none of the core material between each re-issue. That might seem like a pointless detail but think about it, this was originally published in 1995 and in 30 years all Loewen ever needed to change was his introduction. It speaks to the nature of the facts, namely that they are facts. This book has been right about US History since its inception, and despite critics crying "lib!" for over 30 years, the facts have not changed.
Of course, the political discourse in this country has changed, drastically. If you look at the top reviews for this book on Goodreads, they're extremely critical of the obvious liberal slant to Loewen's commentary, of the abundant "white guilt" that drowns out the discourse on education. Those reviews are from 2008, and within the context of the last decade those complaints seem quaint and bygone. If you still believe the news, here in 2025 we're about to cut the Dept. of Education by executive order, with the soon-to-be unemployed Secretary slated to be Linda McMahon of WWE fame. No, I think a centrist position on education policy has been shown to be one of the appeaser, in the Churchill sense of the word. No, in 2025 Loewen reads like a prophet, his "overtly socialist and liberal leanings" could now be mistaken for wide-eyed sobriety if not outright prescience.
Speaking as someone with a single family home's worth of debt thanks to higher education, I still found some of the things that Loewen teaches to be completely brand new to me. I kind of gave it away at the top, but the fact that we continue to rehabilitate Woodrow Wilson's image completely shook me. I've taken collegiate courses on WW1 with significant focus on Wilson; he'd even made my top 5 presidents list in the past- but I had never been taught about him single-handedly re-invigorating the KKK, or about him re-segregating the government. Despite taking multiple film studies courses, I had no idea that Wilson showed Birth of a Nation as the first film in the White House. Or what about John Brown, my teacher blew completely past him, and this was the same guy who said "I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with blood," literally calling out the civil war in advance. This was the first time that I ever read his words:
"Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments, I say, Let it be done"
Is this the most balanced treatment of US History? Not by a mile. But there's not one word of untruth in this book. The rhetoric can be overly persuasive, if not completely bleeding heart at times, but that doesn't discount Loewen's point to me. Especially when it looks like we'll soon be funding religious private schools with public money. No, this is a book that sets the record straight, a book that has been proven correct at every turn. It could ostensibly radicalize you.