About This Book

- Textbooks often present a simplistic and optimistic view of American history, ignoring the struggles and failures of marginalized groups. - Helen Keller, for example, was a radical socialist and member of the Industrial Workers of the World, but this aspect of her life is often overlooked in textbooks. - Textbooks also downplay the negative actions of American presidents, such as Woodrow Wilson's intervention in Latin America and his racist policies. - The textbooks fail to acknowledge the impact of European diseases, the mistreatment of Native Americans, and the influence of Native American cultures on American democracy. - The textbooks also perpetuate stereotypes about Native Americans and minimize the role of slavery in American history.

Top Highlights

• Russia’s civil war. Russian textbooks, on the other hand, give the episode considerable coverage. According to Maddox: “The immediate effect of the intervention was to prolong a bloody civil war, thereby costing thousands of additional lives and wreaking enormous destruction on an already battered society. And there were longer-range implications. ...
• In fact, Henry’s work was based mostly on ideas that were known to the ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians and had been developed further in Arabia, North Africa, and China. Even the word the Portuguese applied to their new ships, caravel, derived from the Egyptian caravos.18 Cultures do not evolve in a vacuum; diffusion of ideas is perhaps the most ...
• The columnist Jeffrey Hart went even further: “To denigrate Columbus is to denigrate what is worthy in human history and in us all.”76 Textbook authors who are pushing Columbus to build character obviously have no interest in telling what he did with the Americas once he reached them—even though that’s half of the story, and perhaps the more import...
• history textbooks still do not provide students with similar tools for critical thinking.
• In 1989 President George H. W. Bush invoked Columbus as a role model for the nation: “Christopher Columbus not only opened the door to a New World, but also set an example for us all