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Your Call

James Loewen discusses the new edition of "Lies My Teacher Told Me"

  On today’s edition of Your Call, we talk with sociologist James Loewen about how history textbooks get things wrong, and how these inaccuracies often obscure or erase oppression and violence.

Loewen has combed through more than a dozen textbooks and exposed misinformation about everything from the first Thanksgiving to the Iraq War in his bestselling book Lies My Teacher Told Me. In a new version of the book, Loewen argues that in the age of cynicism and “alternative facts,” we must do a better job of teaching critical thinking. What lies are textbooks still telling? And how can better education restore civic health?

Guest:

James Loewen, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Vermont, winner of the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship, and author of several books including Lies My Teacher Told Me

Web Resources:

NPR:'Lies My Teacher Told Me,' And How American History Can Be Used As A Weapon

The Atlantic: How History Classes Helped Create a 'Post-Truth' America

The Atlantic: Letters: ‘Textbooks Are Just the Tip of the Iceberg’

 

Rose Aguilar has been the host of Your Call since 2006. She became a regular media roundtable guest in 2001. In 2019, the San Francisco Press Club named Your Call the best public affairs program. In 2017, The Nation named it the most valuable local radio show.