Lies My Teacher Told Me Book Report

     Conversely, James W. Loewen, who did extensive research of high school history lessons to write his book Lies my Teacher Told Me, feels Columbus wasn’t really as great as he is made out to be. Loewen writes, “The history books make up all kinds of details to tell a better story and to humanize Columbus so that readers will identify with him” (38). Just as Hart pushes the idea that Columbus made a great new discovery finding the Americas, Loewen argues that “Columbus’s voyage was not the first, but the last discovery” (39). His importance has to do with the changes that were made in Europe and not having “discovered new land”. People from other continents had gone to America long before 1492. “Daring sailors reached America in a series of voyages across the North Atlantic, establishing communities on the Faeroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland. The Norse colony on Greenland lasted five hundred years (982-c.1500)”. Loewen further goes on to argue against Hart on the issue of the Turks and their supposed land route control and describes the claims as a “falsehood”. Loewen also points out the several times Christianity is used as an excuse

Thomas King’s chapter “Forget Columbus” surrounds the idea that the preconceived notions that Americans have about their own history, and the Native Americans who have resided here for centuries, are wrong. Columbus never discovered America. The

This week for our essay we had to watch a video titled America before Columbus. I enjoyed this video as it concentrated on the food aspect of the particular time from and before 1491. The introduction itself made it clear that the search for a short cut to India and the accidental 'run in' with the Americas was spearheaded and funded by the Queen of Spain. I believe this is an important fact to remember and to note that Columbus was not simply conquering inhabited lands willy-nilly but rather followed orders and working for the Queen of Spain. The area of the America's that Columbus landed on, and all of the America's, was inhabited by Natives that had infrastructures. In the North America's there was an entire civilization that stretched the

All history comes with contradictions. With every moment in history comes a corresponding moment which can take the accuracy and understanding and change them forever. Throughout time people add small pieces of information to great events in our past. This is where we get the misinterpretation of history. In chapter five of the book Lies My Teacher Told Me, these contradictions are brought into light and force us to look at them again. As I have learned in my history courses we can always question the accuracy of a story but we may never fully understand the truth. There have been three important times I have been through that have shaped my understanding of history today, specifically the part of history dealing with slavery and racism.

The celebration of Columbus “discovering” the Americas is a lie as the land was already inhabited by the Natives. He thought he had landed upon India, not the Americas. The politically correct name is “Native Americans” for a reason, because they were here first. Even though their existence went undocumented, the Indians were still a vital part of American history and present day culture as well. As

According to Loewen they got his name right, and not much else. Lies points out that there were many groups of explorers that had "discovered" America before Columbus. He probably used some of their information as a basis for his plans to sail west. A full eight pages are devoted to other possible explorers. These groups include ancient groups from Indonesia, Japan, China, and Phoenicia. More recent groups include the Vikings, British Islanders, West Africans, and Portuguese fishermen. There are varying levels of evidence connecting these groups to pre-Columbian America, but still enough to throw doubt into the mix. Columbus got the credit because of the way in which Europe responded to his "discovery."

When it comes to American history , the credibility of our textbooks has been a problem recent years, especially those in high school. And what we are taught in class seem to be far away from our real life. Facing such an irrelevant and boring subject, most high school students have no choice but to suffer the course and struggle for it. The book Lies My Teacher Told Me may account for this phenomenon to some extent.

Loewen’s thesis in chapter three of “Lies My Teacher Told Me” was that almost everything we know about Thanksgiving is wrong. For example, the textbooks we learn from only teach us the side of the Englishmen, perhaps to cover up the not so heroic side of the Pilgrims? If you look back with the “common sense” we have now, we would have known it was the Native Americans we should’ve been thanking, not God. Even though what really happened was traumatic for the Wampanoag. History is always written by the winners, so when someone is in search of the truth they may want to get the story from the other side also.

To start, Royal’s first points out that America was not “discovered” by Columbus as was taught in grade school, it was filled with thriving Native American tribes. As he wrote, “Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of different indigenous groups lived here at the time of Columbus 's arrival, and historians estimate the total population of the Americas at somewhere between 20 million and 100 million” (Royal 44). This population counts indicates a high-level society, in order for this many people to survive. This disproves many people’s incorrect

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean and discovered what we now know as the Americas… or so it’s been taught. In all actuality, there were already Native people who had been living in the continents for thousands of years. Since 1937, the US has used this “discovery” as a holiday known as Columbus Day to celebrate a man who established the beginning of colonization of the New World. While Columbus did begin the colonization of the Americas, he was not the one who discovered them. History tends to be told from the privileged perspective which is why it’s taught that Columbus discovered these lands. The celebration of Columbus Day promotes the idea of colonization and the marginalization of Native Americans; people also believe it

In reality, if it were not for the Native Americans, the Pilgrims would have been wiped out in a short period of time. The first relationship dealt with economics. In the Pilgrims first winter, many died from disease and starvation because they had no idea about how bad the winters are in New England. They didn’t understand how to grow crops successfully until the Native Americans helped them out, resulting in less death from starvation. Since the Pilgrims were in need of food fast in order to survive, they would have no choice but to steal corn from the group called the Nausets. “The snow made it difficult to find the corn, but eventually they located 10 catches of it.” They educated the Pilgrims about some of their practices such as how to build warm and protected shelters. But in a short period of time this ended up hurting the Native Americans. There was a native man by the name of Squanto who did not mind helping out the Pilgrims at all. Squanto showed the Pilgrims everything he knew about building crops, fishing, building shelters and basically how to survive. Squanto was a very talented eel fisherman and he provided eels to the Pilgrims so that they would have something to eat. “That night the Pilgrims at the eels with relish, praising them…” He also explained to the Pilgrims that if you plant fish in the soil next to your crops, the soil will get richer and the plants will grow better. Even though the Native Americans

Ch.1: Christopher Columbus discovered the New World to European migration. Queen Isabella was funding Christopher Columbus voyage. He convinces the Spain that this would open up better trading routes and it would make them wealthier. ¬¬¬¬¬¬ The Indians were all fascinated with the entire product that the Europeans has. Christopher Columbus and the Conquistadors cheated the Indians and kicked them out of their own land. The Europeans mistreated and executed all the Native Americans that they encountered. The large impact of the invasion was The Europeans captured and used the native Americans as slaves and they brought diseases, weapons, and a hostile desire for the land and control over the new world. The diseases that cause million lives of the Indians were small pox, bubonic plague, influenza, and typhoid. Also the Native Americans were no match for the firearms and explosives of the Europeans. The Native Americans were pushed back into the middle of the United States. The accomplishments of the Spanish in opening the New World to exploration, conquest, and colonization were to gain money, lands, slaves and

People may try to argue that nobody would know about the Native Americans if Columbus did not “discover” them. If Columbus did not discover the Native Americans, more people would probably know about them because around 8 million of them would not have died. Though Christopher Columbus praised the nature he “worked so hard to discover”, he failed to mention the people there for obvious reasons. In his second letter to the king and queen of Spain, our preconceptions about what kind of person he was is confirmed. He acted entitled and somewhat rude towards the royals. If that was how he treated his superiors that funded his trip, you can only imagine how he spoke to the natives.

Throughout time the story of Columbus coming to the Americas has been sugar coated to the point where no one is aware that a group of people were completely annihilated. Howard Zinn believes we should always look at history from both sides but more importantly the side of the inferior. This is because the superior is more likely to exaggerate their findings or plots just like Columbus did when he went to King and Queen Ferdinand. Getting the fact from the inferior provides a more realistic story and how they felt about being attacked. The battle between the Native Americans and Columbus is not a story we tell children in kindergarten. The result of the battle tore apart a culture and race, lives were lost, people were being captured as slaves to bring back to Spain, and many died traveling to Spain. In no way was the meeting of Columbus, the Pilgrims, and the Indians a joyful welcoming

There were many things that caught my attention while reading “The Betrayal of History.” I was shocked when I came to know that the American history taught in our schools was modified by large publishers just to satisfy both the conservative religious right and the multicultural left. The fact that the states of Texas and California make up for 20 percent of the total textbooks sold in America immediately caught my attention. It was surprising to know that many of these textbooks have banned the words like "imagine" and "feel" to please the religious right. I already knew that the information presented in these books were biased, but I didn’t know that it was modified too. After reading this article, I realized that the information provided