Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Loewen's book is flawed and often dishonest. The reasons are many: 1) Loewen's thesis, that "Eurocentric" history textbook writers conspire to purvey "blind patriotism and bland optimism," is a dishonest appraisal of current trends in public education. The reverse is true: the educational establishment generally supports the imposition of left-wing multiculturalism on students while suppressing and vilifying Western culture. Textbook companies, sympathetic to the left, thus routinely inflate the glories, real and invented, of women and "people of color," and exaggerate the dark side, real and invented, of Western culture. Loewen cannot be unaware of this, which makes one wonder about his motives. (For a balanced report on one skirmish in the textbook wars, try "Battleground" by Stephen Bates. The chapter on the textbook industry is enlightening, and contradicts Loewen's core thesis.) 2) He complains that textbooks are filled with "countless factoids," but proposes that they be filled with even more. It is interesting that Helen Keller was a dedicated radical socialist, worshipping a political system that murdered over a hundred million innocent people, but it is irrelevant to the scope of a high school history book. (For an indispensable discussion of what Americans "need to know" and why, please read "Cultural Literacy" by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.) 3) Loewen complains that textbooks "indoctrinate blind patriotism." While paying lip service to American greatness, he seems more intent on amassing claims to the contrary. The truth is, however, that America was founded on great principles and has made steady, conscious progress, albeit with regressions, in applying those principles to all peoples. Loewen sees the need to emphasize our failings, but it is more constructive for all of us to emphasize our progress. It is hard to see, moreover, how entitling a book "Land of Promise" or "Rise of the American Nation" does anything more harmful than to state the obvious. 4) Many of his facts are just plain wrong. The claim, for example, that American Indians influenced the political philosophy of the Founding Fathers is absurd, outrageously misinterpreting existing evidence while ignoring over two millennia of Western history. There is much more along this line. Loewen then has the gall to accuse Abraham Lincoln, of all people, of using "bad history." 5) While complaining about what is not being taught, Loewen again pays only lip service to the textbooks' omission of the indispensable role of religion in American history. (For an excellent presentation of the truth about the American heritage, read "The Theme is Freedom" by M. Stanton Evans. "The Gift of the Jews," by Thomas Cahill, is also useful for understanding how the very concept of human freedom arose out of Judaism.) 6) Thomas Carlyle wrote, "The history of the world is but the biography of great men." Heroes are important for students: if emphasized, they help perpetuate qualities such as honesty, frugality, and self-sacrifice that are necessary to maintain civilized society. The process is called modeling, and it works. Loewen disagrees: he tears down our dead white male heroes, but is not averse to flaunting our heroes and heroines of color. When students choose non-Americans as their heroes, he sees it as a "healthy development." 7) The idea that history will become less "bor-r-ring" if we would only teach more left-wing revisionism (as indeed we already are) is ridiculous. This book certainly succeeds as a political polemic for liberal multiculturists, whose prescriptions are already poisoning both American schools and American culture. Anyone serious about truly improving our schools should look elsewhere. (A good start would be "The Learning Gap" by Harold W. Stevenson and