2581 - Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong--and the State of the Nation, 2022
Course Description
Instructor: Dan Zins
My title, of course, is shamelessly purloined from James Loewen’s best-selling book, "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong," on the hugely consequential miseducation of students in high school history courses. Please be sure to get a revised (2007, or later) version of Loewen’s book (you can find out more about this text on amazon). In the spirit of Benedetto Croce’s dictum that “all history is contemporary history,” this class will explore the shortcomings, cultural contexts, politics, and ideology of history teaching, historiography, the 1619 project, the 1776 report, the moral panic/disinformation over “critical race theory,” and missing/distorted historical memory as reflected in the current state of our nation. The course will have a dialogue/discussion format. Please read the introduction and first chapter of Loewen’s book for our initial meeting.