If you've been to school, you probably need to re-learn American history. The author diagnoses 10 widely-used American history textbooks and shows how much of our history, impacting millions and millions of people, is omitted and dismissed. Why? (1) Because textbook-purchasing authorities and thus authors want to create blindly 'patriotic' citizens rather than intelligent witnesses to the world around them. (Plus, textbook authors habitually cut-and-paste the received dogma.) (2) Because these authorities feel somehow threatened by the historical people and movements that mitigated, modified or distributed the accumulated economic power and influence of those people who already had it, and by extension, of the people who have it today. For how else can we explain textbooks' lopsided downplaying of just how oppressive were labor conditions, treatment of women, the betrayal of the natives, the treatment of African Americans and crushing of anti-war activists? How else can we explain the omission and skewing of the major American heroes we never learned about but who triggered the movements against these many wrongs? This book will help you move beyond the childish 'American history' exercise of brainwashing into blind patriotism, and help you become a more fully-reasoning citizen, and thus one who can reach a greater appreciation of our nation in a way that can move the U.S. toward wiser and stronger in the future.
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