Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The title of this book should have been "Lies My Teacher Told Me.. and Since You Bought Those, Here Are Some More For You". Though very well researched, Mr. Loewen is guilty of the same sins that he charges against history textbooks - Revision of history to suit ones own beliefs, omissions of relevant factual data while making an argument, assertions that have no basis in factual evidence nor source materials, and a bias toward "popular fads" rather than concentrating his efforts toward presenting the full truth and allowing independent decisions by readers. On the onset, he makes a good argument, until he does the same old things that have been done in textbooks. For example on page 67 he claims that there were no "non-white" people in Europe before 1492. That is complete nonsense as the Moors had been in Spain, and both Greece and Rome had imported slaves from the Middle East and Africa. So Europe knew full well of other peoples. Its these little things that wear away at the credibility of the author and are just as bad if not worse than the targets of his attacks. This book contains errors of this type throughout. And they are so obvious at points that it distracts completely from the point the author was attempting to make. While I agree completely that our text books today are in need of a complete rewrite, Mr. Loewen's view of history is just as tainted as the ones he attacks. The trouble with our history books is that they try too hard to present in black and white a world which consists of mostly gray. Mr. Loewen does the same thing in this book. If you are completely enthralled with Political Correctness, here's your history book complete with pre-approved and up to date villains and heroes. If you are hoping to get a glimpse at the truth about our history, try a book by Stephen Ambrose.