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Analysis Of Lies My Teacher Told Me Loewen

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In Lies My Teacher Told Me, written by James Loewen, the author addresses his concerns about how history is taught in American schools. He presents many arguments as to why some information found in textbooks is not accurate as well as how it hurts students in the long run. Loewen also states that these textbooks participate in the sugar coating of gruesome details and try to paint awful people in a heroic light. The twisting of history often leads to either having to relearn real history or the mistrust of all history. Both are lousy outcomes of what the fake history courses could do. Sugar coating, lies, and creating false heroism could lead to careless consequences. Loewen starts right off the bat with how Columbus was “portrayed as America’s first great hero”, when he was in fact an immoral and crooked person. He states that textbooks often leave out the crucial details about Christopher Columbus, but the books don't just lie about Columbus. American textbooks are no doubt biased to the whites. White people are often categorized as the “important” ones, while the rest are …show more content…

Christopher Columbus was an awful man who treated natives as inferior, yet people celebrate him. Loewen states that former President George H.W. Bush had very kind words to say about our so-called hero. Bush said that “Christopher Columbus not only opened the door to a New World, but also set an example for us all by showing what monumental feats can be accomplished through faith and perseverance”. Cleary, he must not know about the slave trade and slaughter that came along with that “faith and perseverance”. Jeffrey Hart, a columnists, also had affectionate words to say about Columbus. He stated that “To denigrate Columbus is to denigrate what is worthy in human history and in us all”. So, according to Hart, to criticize a murdering kidnapper is to criticize what is in us all. Such heartwarming

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