Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen

I read the 1995 edition of this book, and in some places and in some senses, it feels dated. Loewen is absolutely right, of course. Textbooks of the kind he describes, full of errors and low on controversy, make learning hard and boring for students. But, the textbooks he describes seem different from at least some of the ones I used in high school, and in college, we used secondary monographs and printed editions of primary sources rather than textbooks. I think he comes down too hard with a leftist point of view at times as well (for example, when he claims that Thanksgiving celebrations are entirely racist--I happen to love this holiday, not because of the way I understand relations between the Native Americans and the pilgrims, but because it's a time for family to come together). Still, it's an informative read.