Comments on: Lies My Teacher Told Me

By: Jay McCarthy

Jay McCarthy — Mon, 04 Oct 2004 18:55:50 +0000

Re: Columbus

Remember too that most of the native Latin American people who were killed were part of incredibly violent empires themselves. A history of how the Aztecs and Incas conquered their terroritories is just as horrifying.

These people desired each other.

By: Julie

Julie — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 10:27:05 +0000

Bob, imagine if Columbus, his crew and the native American peoples all had blogged their experiences…then we would have a better idea what really happened…or maybe not…:-)

I hope you get to go to college, Kai!

Here’s to fun exploration of the 31 flavors of history…through blogs and books!

By: Bob V

Bob V — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 20:36:20 +0000

What goes for textbooks goes for any sort of publication. Newspapers are also subject to some of the same forces. The best way to get at the truth seems to be to get the information from a number of sources. This goes to why blogs are so useful. It makes it very easy to get a number of perspectives at very little cost. Information that gets hidden in other mediums can get good airplay in the blogosphere if they are relevant enough.

By: Kai Jones

Kai Jones — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 19:49:41 +0000

Yeah. When I think about someday going to college, I usually want to study history. But I get discouraged thinking about having to write for teachers who have their own agendas–I have a very negative view of academia.

(p.s., you may remember me as Kris Hasson-Jones, and “snippy” on livejournal aka Interrupting Gelastic Jew)

By: pops

pops — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 15:54:26 +0000

History and Baskin Robbins are always ready to offer 31 flavors.

Yes, Lincoln had to peserve the Union and use it to further the idea of the nation state so that this nation could compete as a capitalist state of the first order.That view is from the economic history of the United States and has nothing to do with the intellectual history or several of the other flavors.

There are several books about what a nightmare it is to put together American history texts which will not offend the parents of school aged children. Those books created both the icons and the iconoclasts like Mr. Loewen.

And don’t forget – the first job of any professional historian is to take apart and rearrange all the work of all the professional who came before them.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 15:51:01 +0000

What comes to mind reading this is: The admonition not to believe everything you read should apply equally to this book. Was there good documentation for where he got his surprising new facts?