This book has been sitting on my shelf, unfinished, for over a year. I’m
not going to finish it–in fact, I’m going to get rid of it–but I figure
I might as well review it first.

Loewen’s book is a critique of secondary school American history text
books, and as such he does have some valid criticisms; such texts are
notorious for omitting any kind of real controversy. It’s a complaint
that can’t be made too often, but given the process by which history
texts are selected it’s probably also unavoidable.

But I have two major criticisms of the book.

First, Loewen doesn’t seem to understand what high-school history class
is all about. The goal is not–cannot–be to teach our high-school
students everything that’s important about American history. There’s far
too much to know. In my view, history class should first attempt to give
students a working knowledge of the broad sweep of American history. I
don’t care whether the kids retain the precise dates of Millard
Fillmore’s presidency–or Abraham Lincoln’s for that matter. But they
should know approximately when the Civil War happened, and something
about why; they should know why the American Revolution happened, and
how. We’re talking about basic knowledge, and a foundation for future
study. In addition, it should demonstrate the workings of our
constitutional system over time; as such, it’s an adjunct to the usual
government class. In short, the goal is to give the kids the historical
knowledge they need to be good citizens. It isn’t about self-esteem.

Second, Loewen has a skewed notion of what our kids need to know. Yes,
we mustn’t sanitize our history out of recognition; on the other hand,
there’s no need to dwell on our every historical wickedness. Yes,
our heroes have feet of clay; but then, all heroes do. We can make that point
without dragging every hero’s name through the mud. We mustn’t eliminate
the negative–but surely the goal of history class is better met by
accentuating the positive? Loewen seems to want to substitute an
angry self-loathing. If his program were followed, I believe we’d be
teaching our kids to hate our country, rather than to love it while
recognizing and hating its faults.

I don’t have time or stomach to write a detailed critique of the
two-thirds of the book I finished, and in any event it was too long ago.
It’s possible that I’m not being fair. Anyway, I didn’t like it and I’m
not going to keep it.