This response in a thread over a method of teaching black history fits perfectly with the premise of this thread.

Scouring my library for things to read this summer I stumbled over a recent book I never got a chance to read when it came out.

I speak, of course, of James W. Loewen's Lies my Teacher Told Me an award winner I'm sure a few of my fellow members are familiar with.

The basis idea is this, for years and continuing until this very moment when millions of kids return to history class they will be taught a distorted, incomplete version of the history of the Unites States of America.



On the book's website there is a great quiz over historically critical material that our history textbooks often get wrong.

Even after reading the book I scored a 70%.

So, give it your best shot.
Did High School History Prepare You to Take This Test...
First things first...

Have you read Lies my Teacher Told Me?

How'd you do on the quiz?

What is the purpose of American history education in American high schools?

Are our public school textbooks adequately fulfilling that purpose?

Why or Why not?

If not, what can be done to improve US history education?

Have you read Lies my Teacher Told Me? no, but I have seen some of the material.

How'd you do on the quiz?

Not very well. i would be embarrassed because I am a history teacher if it wasn't for the fact that some were very deceptive trick questions and many others I would dispute, such as the native American population of the Americas.

What is the purpose of American history education in American high schools?

To teach the history of the United States in as objective mode as possible while also improving critical thinking skills.

Are our public school textbooks adequately fulfilling that purpose?

I would say that textbooks are fairly effective at this task today. the biggest problem is the thinning out and dumbing down of history by offering superficial detail.



If not, what can be done to improve US history education?

I think we should focus first on math and science and foreign language.
However if public schools continue to hire coach so and so with a PE degree to teach history they are doing a disservice.

BTW I have an MA BA and ABD doctoral work in history and I am familiar with background material for every question on that quiz and I scored about a 50% on a multiple choice quiz.

I spent a portion of class this week explaining why Columbus's voyage and not the Vikings gets the lion's share of attention in history books.

What is the purpose of American history education in American high schools?
I had a look at the test, snorted in derision, and walked away. This is exactly what's wrong with the the attitudes so many people have about history. History is not a random collection of useless factoids such as are presented in that test. History is about how we came to be who we are. It's about the social processes that led to the present, not the dates and numbers. People should study the past so that they can understand the future. Over and over again I find myself shaking my head in disbelief at the opinions some people offer here, wondering if they realize just how many times people in the past have thought the same way, to their own detriment. As the man said, "Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it." Have you noticed a lot of repetition in recent history?

If I were creating a history test, these are some of the questions I'd ask:

1. Why was slavery tolerated in the American Constitution?
2. Why couldn't the South and the North work out a compromise over slavery?
3. Why did America favor the British in World War I?
4. What were the real reasons for the Spanish-American war?
5. What caused the Depression?
6. Why did the Civil War drag out for so long?
7. Who was the best American President and why?
8. What were the causes and problems that led up to the anti-trust laws of the early 1900s?
9. Why were labor-management disputes so intense in the twentieth century?
10. How did America manage to screw up so badly in Vietnam?
11. What was Watergate and why was it important?

The quiz is not the end of the discussion just a jumping off point, If you were to infer the reasoning behind the question you would see that what you are saying is exactly the point the quiz's author was trying to get across.

That is what to author of the book was saying with the quote I posted for instance.


The questions were deliberately sneaky that is true, but then again they were also meaningful because of that very fact.

A person who knew for instance what Lincoln actually professed and not what is often taught in History classes would have no problem recognizing his quote from the Lincoln-Douglass debate.

I always read anything political with a skeptic's eye and although not perfect, this book hit American history education squarely on its misleading head if my experience is in any way typical.

When I went to high school I had a good history teacher who sought sources outside the textbook and tried to make sure we engaged in research for ourselves.

Comparing that research to the treatment by the textbook proved very disturbing.

The fact is, US history education is white-washed to an appalling degree. There is no perspective on how our society has proceeded through time, there is no accurate portrayal of the policies of the US government of the beliefs of its people.

When I was young I was taught all the fairy tales about Christopher Columbus "proving" the world was round and the constant progress this country has made on race relations as if it were absolute fact.

I can't recall ever reaching the end of a US history textbook, every studying the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, on the advent of the information age in any sort of detail.

Everything useful I learned about history I learned by ignoring my high-school textbook and looking towards college-level texts.

There aren't just more detailed, they are often entirely different.

A country that doesn't understand that racism was the norm in the West is unlikely to have a complete grasp of Nazi Germany.

A person who doesn't know of the CIA coup in Iran would never understand the hostage crisis.

A person who didn't know that Native Americans were not all (or even chiefly) hunter-gatherers would not understand the depth of feeling about relocation to "reservations."

The fact is, history as it is taught explains not one of these things and there are many more on the list.

We are instead taught the myth of American exceptionalism and constant progress. That America was always right and that has always gotten better over time.

That can't be good for true civic values in this country.

These are not facts. These are your opinions based on your experiences. Yet, I do think I held very similar opinions as this when I started taking college history classes. As a college history TA and adjunct instructor in your state, I can say that I believe the whitewashing of history seemed to be pretty prevalent with a lot of students coming into college history. But that is not an established fact.



How complex can history be in the first grade? The truth about history is that at every level there are lies that are left in that can be disabused at the next and more complex level. I do have a hard time believing that you were taught how the Civil War was racial progress in an Alabama high school classroom. I think our history has adjusted itself nationally to take a more complex look at our society. So much so in fact that the national history curriculum that was created several years ago has provided fodder for the conservative attacks on modern liberal ideas of education. History is assailed as being too pc and placing undo emphasis on diversity more often today than it is assailed for being a cover for nationalism and patriotism.

Yes our history books contain bias and the story we present to our school children emphasizes the progress of American history.



Well at my school we implemented a course called twentieth century history to address just this fact. World and US history are cot off at World War I and Twentieth Century History finishes the story half and half US and World history until the present day.

When I was 19 or 20 I began to study United States history much more in depth. I felt my history education had been a betrayal and that I had been brain-washed into patriotism. As I tested many of the stories I had been taught I found a seedy underside.

So I started a quest to learn the real history of the United States and uncover a story of ignomy and lies.

A BA, an MA, and the course work for a PhD later I have come full circle to believing that his country has a flawed but admirable history. I have learned the bad side.

I started by studying C Vann Woodward and reading a story from your neck of the woods about the Scotsboro (sp?) boys. I think where Howard Zinn fails to write history effectively is that his history is the unhistory of text books.

These things are all true but they are not the complete history of the United States

Squanto was kidnapped and made to serve as a European sailor.
Pocahontas was kidnapped and held for ransom by the Jamestown settlers.
In the Pequot War New England settlers wiped out the home base of an entire tribe of Indians killing women and children.
New England gained much wealth by trading in slaves.
The South gained much wealth from the labor of slaves.
The United States has the most violent labor history in the world. (Haymarket, Pullman Strike, IWW, anarchists, Molly Maguires.
Sacco and Vanzetti were executed because they were admitted anarchists.
Civil Rights were trampled in the defense of democracy against communism.
Cold War foreign policy supported dictators in the name fighting communism and thereby spread oppression around the world but it was non-communist oppression.
The United States seized land from native Americans and Mexico because it had the power to do so.
Progressive presidents routinely landed troops in Latin American countries to "Police" the western hemisphere under the Roosevelt Corollary.
Sugar planters overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy.
Pulitzer and Hearst ran yellow journalism stories about Cuba in order to wage a newspaper circulation war. In the end the United States had made Cuba a protectorate, the Philippines a colony (with a very bloody colonial war after getting the land from Spain), Puerto Rico and Guam territories.
And Pulitzer and Hearst sold a lot of newspapers.
Japanese American farmers and fisherman who controlled areas that has immense value today were evicted from their land and interned for the duration of the war and were not properly compensated for their losses.
Lynchings were rampant in the United States for years.
JIm Crow descended on the South after poor white farmers threatened the social order by aligning with black populists.
Victorians believed more firmly than other generations that whites were superior to other races.
The United States participated in civilian bombing campaigns in World War II.
Reagan sold weapons to our enemies to illegally fund (against laws past by Congress) the Contras in Central America.
The United States was brought to war in Iraq in 2003 with a load of misinformation and bad intelligence.
Chinese immigrants were targeted by hate crimes in 19th century California.
Anti-Mexican riots swept through Los Angeles around World War II called the zoot suit riots.


Yet a list of the errors and crimes of American history is not the history of America. I came to the conclusion, and this is not a fact, that the United States history compares favorably in most ways with any other world power that has ever existed. And for my concerns about the failings of American society I seek no new nation because I believe and I quite fortunate to live in what I think is, blemishes and all, the best country in the world.

I hope my students never hear me say this because I think they should be skeptical of their history and they should question their heritage and find their own answers.

Turnea I think you are on a solid path. You remind me of the paradox of southern education, that with one of the weakest systems of education in the country, the South routinely produces some who go beyond their immediate resources and make themselves among the most talented artists, leaders, scientists, etc. produced in our country. The South has always produced giants, I just wish the assembly line produced a greater emphasis on life long learning.

1. No
2. I got 48% -- not too good.
3. To provide a broad overview of what happened in the New World from pre-Colombian times to the present day. This is a huge goal, and it's very hard to meet. I know that my class in American History never made it past the Civil War. Something like the fact that Helen Keller was a supporter of the Russian Revolution seems very trivial to me. The fact that the Vikings were an important presence in North America is much more critical. I think that my class in American History did a pretty decent job in presenting the basic facts, without a bias to either side.
4. Some are, some aren't.
5. Lack of time and money are big factors.
6. I'm not saying "throw money at the schools," but better texts and better teachers would surely help.

Have you read Lies my Teacher Told Me?

How'd you do on the quiz?

What is the purpose of American history education in American high schools?

Are our public school textbooks adequately fulfilling that purpose?

Why or Why not?

If not, what can be done to improve US history education?

Yes, I even have an extra copy.
Didn't take the quiz.
History taught in most high schools only serves to give an extremely basic understanding of how we got to where we presently are.
The textbooks stink. I got a first glimpse of how bad when, at 17, I found a Catholic high school history text and found out things that the public school texts were glossing over, or ignoring. The text even pointed out things that were a bit embarrassing to the Catholic church.
I am not sure that better texts or more truth will do any good, except in the last 2 grades perhaps. It would be nice if our young voters had a more realistic idea of the truth of our history, and the untruths of our politicians.
Better teachers? When it comes to history, their hands are tied by the administration. The first time a teacher tries to use Loewen or Zinn or any of the other authors who show the dark side of our history/politics, he or she would be fired at the request of irate parents. It is strange to me that a young college student can be told more of the truth, but a slightly younger high school student must be "protected".

Have you read Lies my Teacher Told Me?

I have not.

How'd you do on the quiz?

52%. Some of the questions were misleading (in other words, the pat answer is given, but the wording of the question allows for a different answer, like the Jackie Robinson question). This was more of an exercise in trivia than in history.

I do dispute at least one question. The quiz claims that there were more deaths in King Philip's war than in the Revolutionary War. According to my sources, only around 3600 people (600 colonists, 3000 Natives) died in that war link. A big portion of the population, I will grant. However, over 4,400 people died in the Revolutionary War link.

What is the purpose of American history education in American high schools?

I think all it can do is provide a broad overview of what happened. It obviously emphasizes successes and glosses over failures and shortcomings.

Are our public school textbooks adequately fulfilling that purpose?

It is failing in general, why should we expect history lessons to be the exception?

I see where the emphasis of this quiz is: the the history of the US is rife with bigotry, segregation, enslavement and cultural dominance. What the history books (of any era) don't emphasize is that this is the norm of society from its inception to the 20th century.

The Egyptians enslaved the Israelites. The Greeks enslaved the Trojans. The Romans enslaved pretty much everyone. The Mongols killed or enslaved huge portions of Asia. The Japanese enslaved the Chinese. African tribes enslaved conquered tribes. Native American tribes enslaved other tribes.

Focusing on imperfections doesn't give one an accurate picture of history any more than excluding such imperfections does. However, a history course's aim should be to give the context and then to explain what happened. It should show how society and culture have progressed rather than focus on how depraved and sadistic society could (and can) be.

In 200 years, do you think the important events of the early 2000's will be the Iraq conflict, gay marriage, tribal genocide in Africa, or priests molesting children? Which is going to be the most important in the year 2200? I virtually guarantee that the deaths in Iraq get more press than the 5 times as many caused by NSAIDs (aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, diclofenac, ketoprofen, and tiaprofenic acid). Is death by anti-inflammatory a historic event?

Here is quiz's answer to the Robinson question:

The first African American Player was Moses Fleetwood Walker and he played for a American Association franchise in Tolodo, Ohio (Tolodo Blue Stockings). The American Association (not to be confused with American League) eventually became part of the National League in 1891. Also, Jackie Robinson was the first African American to sign a formal / major league contract. I would also note that the Chicago White Stockings were called the Cubs in 1889. The Baltimore Orioles "franchise" of 1889 does not exist today.

Have you read Lies my Teacher Told Me?

No.

How'd you do on the quiz?

65%

What is the purpose of American history education in American high schools?

To create a false sense of greatness and infallibility.

Are our public school textbooks adequately fulfilling that purpose?

Admirably.

Why or Why not?

Because most history texts are based on a false sense of greatness and infallibility.

If not, what can be done to improve US history education?

I would rephrase the third question as "What should be the purpose of American history education in American high schools?" At the moment, it is more than fulfilling its purpose as propaganda, whitewashing our real - and really rather grim - history. Due to mass media, history from about the sixties on will be a bit more diverse - and, with the internet and other infotech, it will be impossible for future historians to ignore diversity and dissent. But, for the most part, early American history has, indeed, been written by the victors - and this is what our teachers should be addressing (or redressing).

While I would agree with Erasmussimo that history is not a random collection of useless factoids, I would argue that many of the "factoids" presented on the quiz could be valuable jumping off points for discussions of "how we came to be who we are". Without knowing, for example, that many prominent Americans - like Helen Keller (not to mention millions of ordinary citizens) - were sympathetic to communism or socialism, it is impossible to understand much of our history - and most of our twentieth century history.

Until historians like Zinn and, presumably, Loewen are given equal time with the "headliners" of traditional histories, Americans will continue growing up in ignorance and we will be doomed to repeat the errors of our past.

Have you read Lies my Teacher Told Me?

No, but I might. It's hard to predict what will catch my reading fancy these days.

How'd you do on the quiz?

By trying to take the least likely answers, 47%. Trivia pursuit isn't my strength.

What is the purpose of American history education in American high schools?

I'm not sure. I think to give some general perspective on how we got from there to here for teens who might not give a rip.

Are our public school textbooks adequately fulfilling that purpose?

It's a tough row to hoe, so probably not.

Why or Why not?

Because teens might not give a rip. Probably they don't give a rip.

If not, what can be done to improve US history education?

Make the courses video games. You could create shoot-em-ups for the teen guys and historical fashion makeovers for the teen gals. Important game plot lines should have to do with getting the sequences of events right, finding the mysterious objects (like repeating rifles or whale bone for girdles), gaining points for solving puzzles, that sort of gaming design.

I'm seeing a Civ type thing, where you could choose who you wanted to play in the game, and the game adjusts parameters based on your choice.

Analyze historical novels or movies for accuracy. That's always fun, trying to figure out fact from fiction. Visit a battle field. Figure out how your town was founded and what it went through up until now. Check out the library archives, if available. Start a history debate website for the class. Put on a class constitutional congress, or maybe reenact some historical event. Doesn't have to be a battle.

Add period music to the studies -- get recordings of it and talk about why these tunes were popular. Form a period marching band and compete with other schools.

Put on a period dress/dance prom. Watch taped performances of historical figure actors, like Hal Holbrook or that guy who does Thomas Jefferson. Review period film for the propaganda values.

Overall, history in high school needs to be approached creatively in order to promote interest. Otherwise, it's just old news. That doesn't become interesting until the college years, if ever.



Wertz,

Doesn't recent history indicate that we are doomed to repeat the errors of the past anyway? It becomes a matter of which generation pays the most for the errors. Plus the circumstances keep morphing enough to be perceived as unique.

1) Yes

2) I didn't take the quiz, I merely browsed through it

3) The purpose of our public school history instruction is to "breed" loyal citizens who feel pride in being American [I am not saying that such is what it should be, but given that the overwhelming majority of children were already in school when public education became the wave of the future, there was some reason other than teaching our children].

4) As best/good as can be expected

5) Feel good is always better/preferred than feel bad

6) The answer to this depends on the purpose of teaching history. And, frankly, Loewen is no more removed from history serving a larger political and/or social agenda than are those he and some others criticize. Take Columbus. According to Loewen, Columbus and his men massacred and enslaved the Carribean Indians. First off, if they were massacred, how could they be taken as slaves? Secondly, let Loewen not fall prey to demonizing one man and, for cruel irony, let him not otherwise reduce the wholly complex to a lying simplicity. In the Spain of those days, only a certain type of slavery was permitted, to wit, slaves could only be prisoners of war awaiting ransom [it made economic sense in that if the slave could be ransomed, then the slave had economic value]. And that explains why, when Columbus sent 300 or so slaves back to Spain, the King and Queen objected to the same on the ground that it was well nigh impossible for them to be ransomed. And so ended Columbus' venture in the slave trade. And it was otherwise Columbus' successor, Francisco de Bobadilla, who introduced into Hispaniola, etc., that rather awful practice called the encomienda. Oh, and never mind that the Arawaks, the Caribs, and the Canibs otherwise practiced slavery, torture, and cannibalism [we get the word "cannibal" from the Arawaks who called the Canibs the Canibs]. And I don't suppose that Loewen would provide some balance and mention that these "peaceful" and presumably "loving" "Indians" of the "New World" also practiced ritual human sacrifice. So as bad as the Spanish might have been, their "atrocity" put an end to the ritual human sacrifice of the Aztecs, etc. Back to Columbus, if one would bother to read the man's own journal[s], then one would know that his opinion of the natives changed upon his return on his second voyage. The only thing that had happened in the meantime was the slaughter of those men he had left behind from the first voyage [and there was some indication that the Canibs might have eaten them after slaughtering them]. Then there's the matter of disease. According to Loewen, the natives were apparently living in a blissful disease free environment. Of course, anyone even remotely familiar with evolutionary biology knows, to borrow from Mr. Goldblum, that life finds a way, and since pathogens are life, the natives suffered from syphilis, tuberculosis, etc. And so the 100 million population number asserted as correct by Loewen is most probably false, since it assumes, as do all of the higher population figures, that the natives were relatively untouched by disease. But in addition to the syphilis and tuberculosis, it appears that the incidence of child mortality was rather high [probably owing to the introduction of intestinal parasites on weaning]. And as the societies went from being hunter-gatherer to settled agricultural, they had all those health problems associated with high density populations. And not only that, but with a reduced variety of food intake, and less meat and more maize, potatoes, and squash, we had such things as anemia [iron no longer being obtained from meat] and quite possibly pellagra. It otherwise appears that sickness and morbidity were on the continual increase before Columbus ever set foot in the Caribbean. And never mind endemic warfare, and just ask the natives of Ecuador, who probably lost somewhere near 100,000 in their conflict[s] with their Inca friends. So maybe Loewen should start with and read:

http://www.csun.edu/~jaa7021/hist110/disease.htm

And tell Prof. Loewen for me that the attack on Columbus goes well beyond what the evidence supports, which leads critical-thinking me [though Eras might take issue with that characterization] to conclude that there is some other intended victim of that attack, to wit, Western civilization itself. And tell him also that multi-culturalism is essentially flawed, since all cultures are not morally equal. And, lastly, tell him that multi-culturalism is essentially flawed for an even more fundamental reason, to wit, it is self-contradictory, i.e., the claim made by Loewen and some others is that what passes for US history is white history, and so, according to Loewen and some others, the remedy is to teach black history, etc., and so Loewen is himself stuck in contradiction since he himself has defined our existence in primarily ethnic/racial terms. And never mind for now that it is simply idiotic in the extreme to think that the deeds and/or misdeeds of some others are one's own, that one can take credit or be blamed for the actions of others, and that there is such a thing as ethnic/racial achievement and/or failure [as opposed to individual achievement and/or failure].

The Columbus point is well taken, but it is only one small instance in history that indicates our children are "protected" from the truth, whether it places Columbus or the natives in a bad light.
No historian worth his degree will deny that various Christian churches routinely killed members of competing religions, or that Political parties pretend to be for the down trodden, or the common man, until their man is in power, then all bets are off.
The religious and political salesmen of this world will say anything to get your money, or votes, or whatever they want from you.

I am not sure what is worse, a populace ignorant of the dark side that exists in those "who would be king", or one that knows the truth and becomes so cynical about it that they give up and quit voting.

Even if the critique of Columbus found in the book is inaccurate (a point I am not at all willing to concede as we have Columbus' own words certainty admitting his attitudes and hinting towards his actions) one cannot deny that someone enslaved and eventually caused the near eradication of the native peoples of the Caribbean.

Christopher Columbus
Bartolome de las Casas was not complaining for nothing.

The point of Loewen's book was not really the individuals but an understanding of the nature of European colonialism at the time. Contrary to popular portrayal there was almost nothing even remotely heroic about it.

It lead to the death and suffering of millions of people and the colonial powers exploited Native Americans pretty much ever way they knew how.


I see you didn't read the book. I would be more careful making claims with absolutely no basis in fact as Loewen says quite clearly in the book that this is precisely what he does not want instructors to do.

Lastly if you think you can back your view of the "fundamental flaws" of multiculturalism with evidence I would love to see a thread on it.

Have you read Lies my Teacher Told Me?
Sorry, no. It sounds like an interesting read, albeit one to read while keeping a decent perspective on the good things about America.

How'd you do on the quiz?
I immediately recognized that the quiz was not the standard quiz you would find in high school, but a quiz designed to test our knowledge of America's dark past. So I took the quiz twice, the first time giving the answer that sounded best given the history education I received (or guessed if I didn't know ). I scored 23%. I took it again (doing my best to forget/ignore the answers I had given previously), and chose instead the one answer most likely to shed a bad light on America. That time I scored 70%.

The point is well taken, that much of our darker history is glossed over. I just hope that kind of quiz never actually makes it into a high school classroom, since it is equally unbalanced, just on the other side of the seesaw.

What is the purpose of American history education in American high schools?
To teach young people the successes and failures of the past, so they can make rational choices in the future.

Are our public school textbooks adequately fulfilling that purpose?
Why or Why not?
I can only speak for my own history education, which was decent. We spent more time learning trivial facts and listening to entertaining "stories" than really thinking about "why" and "how". Assuming my education was typical, then I would say not.

Then again, I had almost no interest in history at that point, and so the easiest way to get me and others to learn anything was just to resort to the stories and factoids.

If not, what can be done to improve US history education?
Turn every class into a debate. Almost every decision made in history can be considered controversial given the results from the following several centuries. Provide them with the means to uncover all the "facts" of the situation, mentor them through the process, but let them debate what the decision should have been. Or who was on the light or dark sides of the force.

I think this would 1) help the students develop critical thinking skills, and 2) actually remember the subject matter.

The book itself is actually quite clear on that issue.

Relentless negativity is no more (or less) accurate than relentless "positive" history. The fact is most students of American history only get one side of events.

It would be a major shift in policy for textbooks to be neutral about American history. Right now they are cheerleading, which is not exactly what education is for.

Reacting to a perceived bias in some historians work as a reason to justify intentional bias is IMHO the worst kind of history.

I respectfully disagree that textbooks today chearlead. I think there is a tacit bias in any national history because the focus is in the development of that nation's history.

All histories have blemishes. The United States does as well. I believe that the text book I teach from does a respectable job of refraining from cheerleading. I believe it reasonably addresses the sad chapters in the history of the development of the United States including Columbus's dark legacy, the portrayal of the conflicts with native Americans, the nature of slavery, and the wrongs of Jim Crow America. These things should be presented but not presented with moral condemnation in the text of the book.

Most textbooks that I have used in the last 10 years quote liberally from de las Casas. Helen Hunt Jackson usually gets a clear mention for A Century of Dishonor.

The nation's bloody labor history is always presented.

I was certainly too broad to say they only cheerlead... but from what I remember of history textbooks that accurately describes the majority of the material.

A good portion of these books are actually named to get the cheerleading across. Names like "Call to Freedom" and "The American Triumph" etc.

Everything is viewed from the perspective of humble beginnings and constant progress. It ignores the fact that the country took one step forward and two steps back for a long time on many issues.

Sure, some of the most fundamental wrongs of American policy are addressed, but as sidenotes.

Especially with Native Americans there seems to be a tendency to focus on the European ramifications of the Louisiana purchase with not so much as a rather cursory mention of the fact that most of it wasn't even French-occupied land to begin with.

For the first hundred years of American history the conflict with Native Americans formed a cornerstone of American policy, this is almost impossible to see from today's textbooks.

They seem to include Native Americans in a neat "also ran" box at the top of a page in the middle of the chapter on Manifest Destiny and then go right on talking about the Alamo.

The women's rights movement is another one section a chapter phenomenon. The corruption of the Grant presidency tends to get more space than the Women's Suffrage Movement.

Most students never even reach beyond WWII in which makes discussing the Civil Rights Movement a little difficult.

It is unnecessary to condemn outright such actions as most students will know wrong when they see it. It is critical to treat them with their true importance, not as tokens mentions but as fully integral parts of American history.

Turnea I am not certain that you are not doing a better job of condemning Alabama's educational system than you are condemning the general community of US history textbooks.

In my experience text books that had that feeling to them stopped showing up in my world around 1980. Since then the text books I have used at the secondary and university level have had much more attention paid to a balanced and questioning views of the developments of history.

Most of the complaints I have heard since 1990 are about the textbooks making United States students too ashamed of their history and too attentive to multicultural pluralism and history pc. Granted I have disagreed with these points. But these are the points I am used to fending off, not that high school and college textbooks for US history are clearly propaganda.

I could dig up the titles of the 10 or 15 US history textbooks I have in my house to show that none of them are remotely like the titles you refer to, but I don;t see a clear need at this point.

Seeing as Loewen's book is the only multi-textbook survey I've read I admit I could easily be wrong.

I don't have as much empirical evidence to support my position as I would like. Anecdotal evidence on the other hand...

I remember mentioning in my AP American History class that history education should include the mistakes America has made over the years.

My history instructor, a perfectly reasonable person, looked at me perplexed and asked "Why?"

The fact that that was supposed to be my line worries me to this day about history education in this country.