James W. Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me is a critically acclaimed work pertaining to the inaccuracies found in many history textbooks. Lies My Teacher Told Me notes that history is a school subject often disliked by students. Loewen contends that history is not appreciated because it may be considered intrinsically unappealing, but rather because history is taught in a poor manner. Although Loewen uses all three modes of persuasion in his book, his powerful use of pathos allows for his most convincing argument because he appeals to the emotions of his readers to convey a message that the methods by which American history is taught are flawed.…
James E. Loewen's book Lies My teacher Told Me is a book that should be read by everyone at some point in their lives. According to James W. Loewen, students hate history classes and when they have to take history, the students think it's boring. They repress everythingthey were taught. James W. Loewen spent a lot of time studying 12 history textbooks; he observed high school history classes and interveiwed high school history teachers. Ths is how he knows that the textbook leave out conflict or real suspense (pg 13). In his book he tells us what the textbooks lleft out or distorted about events that took place in history. He asks the question "Why are history textbooks so bad? (pg14). Nationaism is one reason; they want us to be proud of America…
In Howard Zinn’s book, Passionate Declaration: Essays on War and Justice, I read chapter four titled “The Use and Abuse of History.” Zinn in this chapter discusses how history is used and abused. Many in society today only tell “impartial history,” meaning we leave parts of history out to make a certain group or event stick out. History in the United States of America is swayed always to make us look like the good ones. We are a biased country and the government will do anything to censor out the exact truth.…
The greatest battle in our nation’s history was the Civil War. The Civil war was a very complicated war but most people just say that the North won just because they were better. Well that’s not all the accurate. The Confederacy lost this was because of a few disadvantages not because they were inferior to the Union. This Disadvantages were, the Confederacy had little time to prepare for a war of such importance, the troops of the south found themselves losing faith and fighting for a lost cause, a lack of leadership by their President, Jefferson Davis, innovations of weapons making easier for anyone to be accurate, lack of competent generals for the Confederacy, the Confederacies lack of an infrastructure, and the losing the battle of Gettysburg. There are more things but these played a major role in the outcome of the great Civil War.…
4. Use this panel to describe connections between the Declaration of Independence and the second principle, social contract. Be sure to include a quote from the Declaration of Independence.…
The document that I found that states the people of the colonies want independence from Britain is called the Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, and was written July 6, 1775. It took me quite sometime to find this document, but the way I found this document was by first searching Google for documents that were written before the Declaration of Independence. Then I went through all the documents and read through many of them to see which ones clearly stated they wanted independence from Britain and met all the criteria. The website I found this document on was on the website titled greatamericandocuments.com. I then searched through all the different documents that were written during this time, and then on this website I clicked on the link that said Declaration of Arms, and found the material needed for this assignment.…
It is said that “history is written by the victors” (Winston Churchill) or rather “History is a set of lies agreed upon.” (Napoleon Bonaparte). Unfortunately, today in the state of Texas both statements appear to be true. The study of history is intended to help one piece together the constant evolution of past events, religions, philosophies, politics, societies, and economics. By cutting out portions of historical information students have missing pieces in the puzzle of history and this limits many student’s potential of fully understanding the complete picture. As a result this cultivates ignorance in our complex multicultural society. There have been many historical figures that were very good at limiting information and presenting a particular ideology, this is also known as propaganda.…
The United States is the current super power in the world. To make sure that the country retains the status, the president can learn many lessons from its history in terms of tactics, strategies, and goals. This would assist him to become the best and most effective president he can be for the Americans. However, the purpose of this paper is to provide a background report explaining to the president things o learn from the United States history. It will also provide an analysis of what from the past can be of assistance for the upcoming year’s in terms of the current issues the U.S. and the world are dealing with. Lastly, the paper will cover the rise of corporate power and its effect on democracy and justice, fairness, economic growth, and globalization.[1]…
James W. Loewen wrote the book "Lies My Teacher Told Me" to help students understand the past of the United States, and how it is effecting the present. "Lies My Teacher Told Me" examines 12 various American history text books, and points out the various lies, flaws, and sugar coated stories the text books present. Loewen explains how textbooks practice heroification, and how race and race relations are a major issue when it comes to American history. Among these topics, Loewen also sheds light on the truth about social classes in America, and how textbooks lie about the past and try to avoid the recent past all together.…
Historians have a responsibility to represent the all information in a fair and neutral manner, but sometimes historians fail and they attempt to deny distasteful events in history. For example, David Irving made claims that the holocaust never happened, but claims such as these are based on deception and they misrepresent history. David Irving was discredited and it ended his career. In other instances, revisionism is necessary when new discoveries alters events in history, but changes such as these can be problematic when historians ignore or refuse to make the necessary adjustments. Furthermore, new methods in history encourage scholars to think out of the box through inventive and imaginative means that foster questions like “what could have been or what should have of been”, but these methods often ignore facts and lack the concrete evidence to support the “what if” theories. Historians have a difficult and demanding job because they often face unethical situations, but most historians understand the significance of respecting and representing history in an ethical…
Animal Experimentation plays an important role in today’s medical and pharmaceutical advances, but many question the morality of such a use of animal life. Whether you argue that testing different products and drugs on animals is necessary or not, this has become an integral part of developing products. From that Tylenol you pop to get rid of your headache, to that perfect shade of pink lip gloss, animal testing is used in order to produce the simplest household items. Today, in the United States, it is federal law that requires all pharmaceuticals, food additives, cosmetics, and garden chemicals to undergo a series of tests, including animal testing, before being available to general public. It is estimated between fifty and a hundred million vertebrate animals worldwide are being used fro animal experiments. While many believe that animal experimentation is a crucial part of research and safety, others argue the morality of this issue. Another point of view some share is a mixture of both opposing views, where one believes that animal experimentation should only be condoned in the field of medical research but not for vanity reasons.…
History as a weapon is a pitfall that is very common and easy to become a culprit and a victim of. For students, they cannot control the curriculum that they are taught. Unfortunately, they have no way of identifying false information if they have little to no knowledge of the subject. For example, as a student I looked forward to Christopher Columbus Day because I enjoyed celebrating this phenomenal event in history. Each time I heard the story, it seemed even more incredible because the older I became, the more I was able to understand how remarkable his accomplishments were. However, it was not until ninth grade that my history teacher ruined everything I had once believed about Christopher Columbus. This moment was very difficult to understand as a student and an aspiring teacher. How could my teachers betray me for so many…
To start off, as a teenager, I entertained the idea of everything I could learn about being in high school and as a freshman in high school I struggled to fit in I relied on the art of media to enlighten me. Awkward was one of the multiple teenage TV series that I entertained watching. Awkward was a MTV series that aired on July 19th 2011. Awkward is comedy series about an unpopular 15-year-old in which gains popularity after she had an accidental suicide attempt. After re watching this series to refresh this show has been given awards such as Teen Choice Award for Choice, TV Breakout Star Male, People’s Choice Award for Favorite Cable TV Comedy. After looking at the top 5 main characters my mind I was shocked at all the white people on the…
Every person at some point in their lives has compared themselves to someone, whether it was a co-worker, a best friend, or even a complete stranger; we’ve all done it. But my question is why? Why does a person choose to torture themselves this way? Has one ever remembered a time when they compared themselves to someone for something they didn’t have and felt good about it afterwards? By doing this foolish act we are relinquishing our joy that we had possessed inside ourselves for our own achievements because our neighbor seems to have it better.…
Multitrack recorders were originally developed in the early 1950s in Germany. The initial principle of multitracks was to divide a tape in two parts and record different sounds onto each and play them back concurrently. The fact that both tracks would be on the same tape would mean they would be synchronised exactly. In classical music recordings of the 1950s, the early two track machines were first used and recorded in stereo. Two different mics would be used and these signals would be recorded simultaneously. Pop and jazz recordings however, remained in mono until the mid sixties. The first three track recorder is attributed to Les Paul who developed the system with his wife, singer Mary Ford. Ampex were soon to realise the possibilities of such a machine and bought the device from Paul. Ampex quickly released a refined version of the three track which was in common use until the birth of 4-track in the mid 1960s. Many Motown hits and, maybe most famously, Phil Spector's Wall Of Sound' were recorded on three track machines.…