"another book review" or "graverobbing pilgrims?"

The book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James Loewen follows the premise that minorities have relatively little interest in American History classes in part because the heroes usually don't resemble "them."

American History is pretty Eurocentric: the Americans fought the British, the French, the Spanish, the Mexicans, and even each other for a bit. Oh, and back in the day they booted the Natives off their land without too much fuss. A few bullets here, a smallpox blanket there, and a trail of tears. That’s pretty much it, right?

Waiiit a minute. They actually did fight. In fact, they were a big, fat thorn in the settlers' side for decades at a time! And they won battles, too! And it wasn't just Little Big Horn, either! This book records many skirmishes the settlers had against the various Native-American tribes.

It removes the hero’s veil from our patriotic legends and exposes George Washington and others as fallible HUMANS. The oral history lesson about Christopher Columbus' atrocities was especially interesting.

If you'd like to read about American history that encompasses ALL Americans I recommend this book. For best results, read it along with a regular history textbook. Loewen likes it like that.

here's a link to the book on Amazon.