I highly recommend "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen

[eccles12]

If you want to really expand your understanding of history, this must be on your reading list.

[KatieW]

1. My mom got it for me last Christmas. It does give you a new perspective.

I definitely learned some stuff I never got in school. By the way, my mom definitely leans to the right, but maybe her buying this for me makes her not a total lost cause. Both her and my dad were definitely right wingers, especially my dad. I guess that's one big reason I was probably more right wing till I started reading more, and being here on DU has definitely helped open my eyes.

[JitterbugPerfume]

2. thanks for the reminder

I have been meaning to add that to my reading list

I am presently gourging myself on Jack Kerouac and the Beat generation

so many books , so little time

[WinkyDink]

3. Read it ages ago! Heh. I was a teacher then. Certainly gave me a

new perspective on Columbus, e.g.

[LostinVA]

4. All of his books are terrific

[Godhumor]

5. Hated that book

I read it once and tossed it--I felt that a lot of what he said was conjuncture and hypothetical in nature with very little presented evidence to back it up.

[chrisbur]

6. I love it.

I found the chapter title "The Disappearance of the Recent Past" to be exciting. I've always had this theory that students and teachers were doomed to start at 1492 and by June get to about Teddy R. Year after year. Trust busting notwithstanding, we never got to read about Wilson's authoritarian leanings, FDR's liberals reforms, McCarthy's wild eyed xenophobia, or Johnson's "Great Society".

I never thought it was time constraints. It was controversy. This is why politics(controversy) is taboo amongst people who disagree. We have created a very dangerous tradition of non-confrontational ism.

I'm not saying it's a conspiracy just a convenient situation for the forces that want people dumbed down and isolated.

Anyway, maybe it was just the schools that I went to.

[BuelahWitch]

7. You're pretty much correct

My love of history began in the 11th grade when we *did* move on beyond the Civil War. I was fascinated by WWI and the stories of the Teapot Dome scandal, then the Depression. It was brand new to me because every other history class ended at the early 20th century or before.

Didn't get to '60s history however till I went to college and took a course about that decade

[Bill McBlueState]

8. we went backwards

When I took high school history, the teacher was in his last year before retirement. I guess that meant it was time for him to experiment. We started with the present day and went in reverse.

It definitely solved the problem you bring up, but it's hard to talk about historical cause and effect when you learn about the effects before the causes.

[Sabien]

9. Loewen is also a great teacher.

I worked for him doing research on this book http://www.uvm.edu/~jloewen/liesacrossamerica.php

He's a good man and I recommend all of his work.

[Ian_rd]

10. I've read this book, and recommend it to anyone. KR!