Book reviews

Lies My Teacher Told Me (book review)

Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen is a classic in the history field. Originally published in 1995, one would think it would be well out of date by this time, thirty years later. The reality is – it couldn’t be more relevant.

Loewen examines twelve high school history textbooks widely used in the United States in the early 1990s. He looks at what they get right, what they get wrong, and inquires into the nature and method of teaching history in the American educational system. His findings range from grim to hilarious. But almost universally, he finds that the school systems are failing to educate our children on the most rudimentary facts of our nation’s past.

The problem is manifold. By and large it can be broken down in to three broad areas: 1) Avoid controversy; 2) Instill patriotism; 3) Briefly memorize facts to regurgitate on a test. No wonder students roll their eyes and slumber through many history classes. It is simply not interesting. The texts present history as bland, inevitable, and most definitely, absolutely irrelevant to anything that is happening today.

Some publishers and school boards seem to think that our students must be shielded from any uncomfortable truths about our nation’s past. All stories must have a happy ending. Bor-ring. Controversy is all around us, every day – now moreso than when Loewen wrote his book. Our teenagers are not immune or ignorant of this. So why must varying or disputing viewpoints and interpretations be excised from our textbooks?

Instill patriotism

Some publishers examined in Loewen’s work seem to believe that they should present a single overarching narrative about America the Great, free from complexity, controversy or any kind of shortcoming. But our students are wise and perceptive. They themselves can interrogate this notion – wondering why their family struggles to pay bills, or why their grandfather was refused service at a lunch counter because of the color of his skin.

But what if instead, history was presented as an uncertain story, full of contingency and suspense – the way people of the past actually experienced it? And, in fact, the way we experience all of the uncertainty and “unprecedented” situations we face today? We should challenge students to view more recent events through a historical lens, to help them see how history itself is “created” and narrated. Consider how points-of-view and motives factor in to the ways events of the past were recorded (or omitted) – and how those stories are told and remembered today. Comparing two different first-hand accounts of an event is a great way to understand the way historical events were reported and yes, “created” at the time. Understand and evaluate how interpretation affects history – what is remembered, recounted, and forgotten today. What stories or peoples are left out of the narrative – and why? What is patriotism anyway – blind obedience or thoughtful engagement?

Avoid controversy

By avoiding controversy, events of the past are vastly oversimplified. The causes, consequences, origins and outcomes of events are glossed over, or omitted entirely. Connections between past and present, or events separated in time yet still linked in causal factors, are seldom mentioned. For example, the effort to secure Black civil rights during Reconstruction and the white backlash that followed, are divorced from the racial discrimination and Jim Crow laws that made the modern Civil Rights movement possible and necessary a century later. In Loewen’s words, “Nothing ever causes anything. Things just happen.”

By oversimplifying, historic events become “inevitable.” Why, of course the North won the Civil War. Of course “the West was won.” But of course – these present only one side of the story – a story that had many participants, many narrators, and many possible outcomes at the time. Oversimplification also makes it much easier to “dumb down” history. This happened, then that happened, there was this small little hiccup, and then we all lived happily ever after. Not many people truly believe that to be the case.

Regurgitation of facts

Which brings us to the ultimate pain point of the way history was taught in Loewen’s time – and often still in our own. Read the textbook. Memorize the facts so you can pass a multiple choice quiz. Read, repeat.

This is no way to teach any subject in a meaningful way, and certainly not history. History is full of contingencies and surprises, plot twists and twists of character and fate. How will it turn out? What happens next? How do these events support, weaken, challenge or expand our understanding of our nation and its values? What did America’s ideals mean to enslaved people, for example? Ask Elizabeth “Mumbet” Freeman of Massachusetts – who successfully sued for her freedom in Massachusetts in 1780.

The “regurgitation of facts” model of history education does nothing to encourage critical thought, evaluation of sources, or to bring in some hint of uncertainty about how things will turn out. It does nothing to connect or follow through themes across time and place.

Thank goodness there are programs now like National History Day that encourage instructors and students to select and study history in a way that is stimulating and engaging. Primary resources and interpretation are key to this methodology, and students learn any number of skills that are seldom used in rote-memorization history classrooms. Critical thought and evaluation of sources, research skills, creativity, teamwork, inquiry, writing, organization, project planning, and other skills are all part of the History Day package. In fact, the skills learned through History Day projects are transferable to other areas of students’ education as well.

Loewen’s book has much that it can still teach us, today. History can be interesting. It can produce engaged and thoughtful citizens. But to do so, our textbooks and educational system need to allow students to engage, question, and investigate the past – not just memorize one version of it that a publisher or school system has declared authoritative.

The Right to Vote (book review)

Alexander Keysar’s The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States should be required reading for every voter in America, and certainly for every civics and social studies teacher. Keysar unveils the little-known history of both the expansion and contraction of voting rights in the United States.

For example, in some colonial-era Massachusetts and New York towns, propertied widows could vote (p. 6). Women in New Jersey could vote until 1807 (p. 54), and some Michigan women could vote in school elections in 1855 (p. 399). This was all long before the passage of the XIX Amendment in 1920.

Keysar documents the see-saw nature of voting rights in America, and how uniquely place-specific the right to vote was determined. In some states, only property owners could vote. In others, only taxpayers (which could include widows and single women) were eligible. As the U.S. population grew and expanded westward, forming new states and territories, state constitutions laid out the criteria. A person could be a resident of one state and not be able to vote; they could move to another state, and find that they were eligible. The opposite could happen as well.

Race was often used as an explicit qualification for voting eligibility; or to the contrary, it could be used to deny voting rights. Frequently, laws or state constitutions might specify that only “white” men or persons could vote, while other states (like New Jersey, above) might mention “inhabitants” thus adding leeway for a broader interpretation. In some locales, there was confusion about the eligibility of Native Americans to vote. Were they to be considered “white”? What if they had begun to be assimilated into white culture, and owned property and paid taxes? Would they be eligible to vote, then? Such matters sometimes sparked fierce debates on the state house floor.

And what about free Blacks? In Tennessee free Black men had the right to vote until a new constitution was written in 1834. [Oddly, the summary posted at the Secretary of State‘s office fails to mention this important change in the law.] Keyssar finds that Black access to the ballot steadily declined from 1790 to 1850. While states such as New York and Connecticut granted Black men the vote shortly after American independence, by 1820, those rights had been taken away, and they were steadily eroded elsewhere. Notably, as late as 1855, just a few years before the Civil War, five Northern states still permitted Black men to vote (p. 55). It would not be until the passage of the XV Amendment that Black men throughout the United States gained the legal right to vote, but it would take almost a century for them to vote without violence or intimidation in the South.

These are just some of the stories Keyssar tells in his book. He also looks at age, wealth and economic status, labor unions, political views, citizenship, immigration status, military service, language, religion, race, and ethnicity. He traces the history of absentee ballots, the right of citizens to petition the government, and more.

It’s so easy for us today to think that the majority of Americans enjoy the right to vote. But it hasn’t always been that way, and as recent elections have shown, new qualifications and impediments to expand and restrict the franchise are still being debated and instituted today.

Tourism, History and Memory

Jim Weeks, Gettysburg: Memory, Market, and an American Shrine
 (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2003).

In honor of the 150th anniversary of Gettysburg, instead of reading yet another book about the furious fight on the Pennsylvania hills, I chose to read this book by Jim Weeks. It was recommended to me earlier this year by Rob Thompson whom I met at the Future of Civil War Studies Conference this past spring. I had asked Dr. Thompson if he knew of a good book about Gettysburg and tourism, and this was the title he mentioned.

It is an extraordinary example of public history, and one that carries many lessons and examples far beyond Gettysburg and the Civil War:

How do tourists in the present day encounter history? What are their expectations? What do they feel they already know about the site or its story? How do their educational experiences and background affect their outlook? How has the historic site been commercialized? How do the business people involved in such activities view their association with the historic site?  What kinds of objects or services do tourists purchase, and why? How has the interpretation and commemoration of the site changed through time? How did the historic site come to be marked, remembered, and commemorated? Has this changed over time? What is the natural environment at the site – and how does that affect interpretation and the visitor’s experience? How do issues of race, class, and gender intersect with all of these issues? And the ramifications go on and on and on.

Every page is full of keen insights about the history of commemoration and tourism at Gettysburg. But even more enriching than that, nearly all of Weeks’ observations can be extrapolated to virtually any other historic site.  It is a case study, that can serve as a guide.

Highly recommended!