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Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong |  | Author: James W. Loewen
Publisher: Touchstone
List Price: $16.00
Buy New: $2.79
as of 11/25/2009 06:36 CST details
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Seller: thebookguyz
Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 96320
Media: Paperback
Pages: 464
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 074329629X
Dewey Decimal Number: 973
EAN: 9780743296298
ASIN: 074329629X
Publication Date: October 16, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In Lies Across America, James W. Loewen continues his mission, begun in the award-winning Lies My Teacher Told Me, of overturning the myths and misinformation that too often pass for American history. This is a one-of-a-kind examination of sites all over the country where history is literally written on the landscape, including historical markers, monuments, historic houses, forts, and ships. With entries drawn from each of the fifty states, Loewen reveals that:- The USS Intrepid, the "feel-good" war museum, celebrates its glorious service in World War II but nowhere mentions the three tours it served in Vietnam.
- The Jefferson Memorial misquotes from the Declaration of Independence and skews Jefferson's writings to present this conflicted slave owner as a near abolitionist.
- Abraham Lincoln had been dead for thirty years when his birthplace cabin was built.
Lies Across America is a realty check for anyone who has ever sought to learn about America through the nation's public sites and markers. Entertaining and enlightening, it is destined to change the way American readers see their country.
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| Customer Reviews:
 More interesting than school history class! November 1, 2009
ACM
Excellent book which gives a different perspective on history, and a more interesting one, in my opinion. Most of us who are not history majors retain only what we were taught earliest, which means all that dumbed-down, glossed-over, boring stuff from elementary or middle school. This is an entertaining read, whether you are a history major, or not.
 Very valuable and interesting book October 10, 2009
EJon
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
For all the shrill complaints, you'll notice no one points out any errors in this book. Indeed, most of the factual history in the book is solid and not even seriously debated by historians. For example - numerous memorials notwithstanding - all serious historians agree that the Confederates, not the Union, burned Richmond and many other Southern cities as they abandoned them. I learned a lot from this book, and I haven't found any serious problems with his facts for for the items I've looked into - although I don't think *everyone* would agree that President Buchanan was gay.
Like his earlier book, one of his central points is that accurate and complete history - with all its controversy and complexity - is simply more interesting than the sanitized (and sometimes just plain wrong) version we get in school or from historical monuments. I strongly agree, but some people are very uncomfortable with this view, as is clear from the other comments. He doesn't say our Founding Fathers were "despicable", merely that they were human beings with human flaws - some of them large. For example, he has a lot of good things to say about Thomas Jefferson, but it's a pretty serious omission to sweep the fact that he owned slaves under the rug. If you want to hear only good things about our major historical figures, do yourself a favor and *do not read this book*.
He does have a serious axe to grind with the South, but remember he's competing with books like "Slavery: as it was", which is still trying to paint an idyllic picture of black simpletons who really preferred being slaves (read some of the glowing reviews *that* book gets). We would probably complain if Germany still had monuments to Nazis, yet the South has many monuments vicious and outspoken racists.
That said, the book does have a few flaws. First of all, he really beats some things to death. For example, he objects to the use of the term "discover" for anyplace where Indians were already living. Fair enough, but he devotes quite a bit of the book to going through these on a case by case basis, and it just gets repetitive. I would have been happy for him to have simply made his case and then given a short list of examples.
Second, like his first book, he does interject a bit too much of his personal politics. Usually, this is in the form of explaining how certain monuments came to be, but sometimes it's about monuments that aren't necessarily inaccurate, but just "incomplete" in his view. While I don't think his views are necessarily wrong, these observations give the book a biased tone that it doesn't need to have. The book would still have plenty to say if it stuck strictly to facts and avoided analysis.
So, definitely read the book. Check the facts yourself if you don't believe them, and take the politics with a grain of salt.
 Far Left Loewen and his Lies October 4, 2009
A reader and (Ohio)
0 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book is pure garbage. It is not really about exploring the genuine inacurracies in American monuments and markers (perhaps an interesting topic). It is really about James Loewen trying to force his far left political views and outlook on others. Many of Loewen's claims of inaccuracy are actually debateable and Loewen is simply taking sides and proclaiming the far left view to be true. Sometimes Loewen's complaints have nothing to do with inaccuracies at all, just Loewen complaining that whites or southerners honor some politically incorrect person or event. I seriously wonder, after having read Kevin MacDonald's Culture of Critique, if their isn't an ethnic diminsion to Loewen's hostility to white Americans and Southerners. If any historical sites should be removed, I would recommend removing a particular museum in Washington that claims to show events that Americans really had nothing to do with and that certain segments of the population want to constantly focus on.
I was VERY disappointed April 26, 2009
Roderick D. Christopher (Louisville, KY United States)
2 out of 18 found this review helpful
I only paid $4.99 for this dreadful book and I feel cheated. I was hoping for an interesting journey through our quirky and sometimes just silly U.S historical sites but what I got was a book that does nothing but preach about the evils of our "vile" forefathers and how insensitive they (and we) are. Luck for us that Mr. Loewen is here to enlighten.
You can tell this was written by a sociology professor and not a history professor
Take with you on next vacation September 21, 2008
Uriah E. Hilton
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
This book is a eye opener. It can get a bit boring just reading straight through. My recommendation is take it with you the next time you go on vacation and try to find some of these sites listed in the book.
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