Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong | James W. Loewen

Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong | James W. Loewen | Interesting and Funny

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Lies Across Americ...

	Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong James W. Loewen, 1999 - 480 pages average customer review:based on 70 reviews view larger image
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The fabulous sequel to the bestselling, award-winning "Lies My Teacher Told Me." James Loewen's last book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, a debunking of the twelve leading high-school American history textbooks, won the American Book Award, the AESA Critics' Choice Award, and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Anti-Racist Scholarship. It has sold more than a quarter-million copies in its various editions. Now, using the same irrepressibly honest approach and the same subversive take on all things bogus and misinformative, Loewen has identified a whole new arena for his one-of-a-kind inquiries into the way we tell our country's story. Lies Across America looks at more than one hundred sites where history is told on the landscape, including historical markers, monuments, outdoor museums, historic houses, forts, and ships. Loewen uses his investigation of these public versions of history, often literally written in stone, to correct historical interpretations that are profoundly wrong, to tell neglected but important stories about the American past, and, most importantly, to raise questions about what we as a nation choose to commemorate and how. Lies Across America offers startling revelations about sites we think we know: Valley Forge, Abraham Lincoln's log cabin, the Intrepid. It also tells of new sites, events, and individuals that should be commemorated on the landscape but aren't: a tombstone with a story to tell in Mississippi, a spy in the Confederate White House, the unforeseen fallout from the first nuclear missile test, the reverse underground railway, a modern "sundown" town (blacks can work there, but they'd better leave before the sun sets). It asks why, across our landscape, Indians are consistently "savage," tribal names are wrong and derogatory, whites "discover" everything, and the term "massacre" is a one-way street; why war museums have selective memories, guides at FDR's family mansion in Hyde Park are "specifically forbidden" to talk about Roosevelt's mistress, and James Buchanan's house makes no mention of the fact that he was gay. It muses about the Civil War mare in Kentucky who got an extra body part, the Polynesian King made to look like a Roman emperor on monuments in Hawaii, and the statue of a conquistador in New Mexico who lost his foot. This book is a reality check for anyone who has ever sought to learn about America through our public sites and markers. It is destined to change the way we see our country.
Lies Across America includes:
- Sites from all fifty states plus the District of Columbia, organized geographically, west to east
- Introductory essays on: the role that monuments, markers, and other historic sites play in our society; how historic markers get on the landscape in the first place; what historic markers say about the era they commemorate versus the era in which they were erected; the visual symbolism of monuments and memorials; the way historical markers are revised over time (including natural forces, spray paint, and dynamite)
- A list of twenty candidates for "toppling"--markers so distorting or inaccurate they should be removed or rewritten immediately
-Forty black-and-white photos of notably interesting and/or awful markers

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America lies from East to West.

Loewen once again presents historical truth regarding America history that the masses have yet to hear. A must read for everyone.

Interesting and Funny

This book is divided into short reviews of various historic sites across the US. It's a great learning experience to read about some of the sites. Loewen gives the history of the site, including why it was established and often what the politics were at the time. There's some amusing information about misinformation that the sites portray. I have truly enjoyed reading this, and because of the way it's set up, it's easy to read in short bursts when you just have a few minutes.

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Gives you something to think about

I really enjoy this book. There are many things in it that I do not agree with, and sometimes I feel like Loewen lets his personal political views and opinions guide his essay more than historical facts. However, this book, especially the essays at the beginning and the end, truly give the reader something to think about as they study history. The essays on the concept of civilization and "discovery" were very intriguing.

When reading this book one needs to keep in mind that a lot of the things Loewen says are his opinions, and we are free to make our own. Whether or not John C. Calhoun deserves to have a place on the landscape, etc, is something we as a people need to decide. And I believe that simply because someone did something bad doesn't mean he should be ignored on the landscape or throughout history. And sometimes I feel that Loewen proclaims to advocate having both sides of a story on the landscape, but advocates otherwise when he asks for certain momuments to be removed or changed to represent his own point of view.

All in all, this is a very good and interesting book, especially for those who love history and care about the historical monuments of this country. Even if one doesn't agree with Loewen, it is good that he gives us more to go on and make our own opinions on the historical landmarks around the country. If you are looking for a book to make you think and change your perspective on history, this is the book for you.

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