48 Liberal Lies About American History: (That You Probably Learned in School)

My husband saw this book in a bookstore for $25. I found it on amazon for $17 and got free shipping. Cannot beat that deal! I didn't even have to spend gas money to get back to the store to get it for him (as a gift).

We receipt it promptly and are very happy with it. My husband has not read the book yet he just reviewed it. Thank you.

First of all I have to say that I had grand expectations for this book given how much I enjoyed Larry Schweikart's "A Patriot's History of the United States," yet this book chose the path of being more provocative, and confrontational rather than educational. Schweikart makes a number of good points but also picks and chooses his battles which I believe undermine his arguments in a number of instances.

Please don't misunderstand I am grateful for Mr. Schweikrart's viewpoints and I am glad he is there to make sure we don't slide into an overly biased viewpoint of American history. Still, one only needs to review a representative sample of history texts to see that they bend of backwards to try and be fair and it is in doing so that we end up with the silliness Mr. Schweikart so astutely points out. I enjoy this book, but we are far from the crisis alluded to within its pages.

Author Larry Schweikart has done the American public a valuable service in exposing the liberal biases in American textbooks that have helped move the public markedly to the left in the last five decades. He has done this in a very readable fashion -- actually this book is almost fun to read if the subject wasn't so disturbing.

Schweikart is admittedly a conservative academic historian; a very rare bird indeed and something simply not permitted on faculties of "elite" universities like those in the Ivy League who are promoting the Bilderberg agenda and producing globalist and socialist leaders. One wonders even how he gets along at the University of Dayton with its overwhelming numbers of leftist faculty.

Some of the "Lies" Schweikart presents are extremely well researched and argued while others would take many more pages to firmly nail down the truth. He comes up short, for example, on the leftist contention than North America was populated by vast numbers of Indians (some "historians" go as high as 90 million) before Columbus arrived. He fails to mention the leftist methodology for arriving at the "high" estimates. Those promoting such absurd figures take the Indian populations as estimated by colonists and explorers (already high estimates), then after assuming those populations to be only 5% of their former numbers due to European-introduced diseases and European brutality, they fecklessly multiple those numbers by 20.

Another "Liberal Lie" that troubled me was #3, "FDR Knew in Advance About the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor." First of all, this contention normally comes from the conservative side rather than the liberal. In addition, the preponderance of evidence shows that Roosevelt did believe an attack at Pearl Harbor was quite possible, but he also believed all necessary precautions had been taken by his military commanders to repel such an attack. Kimmel was an aggressive commander, and Short supposedly had put the Army at the highest possible alert level. Unfortunately, Short had reversed the alert level numbers without informing Marshall, so Marshall thought Short was at the highest alert level when actually he was at the lowest. The rest, as they say, is history.

The last "Lie" I wish to comment on is Schweikart's correction that Slavery was indeed the driving force behind the Civil War. As Schweikart points out, Slavery was THE issue causing the South's secession. However, the motivation for most of the South's men to fight was not to preserve slavery, but rather to defend self-determination and their home-grown rights. (See McPherson, "Why They Fought.") This is an important distinction, and one not often made in the North.

Yes, history textbooks are biased to the left, and this work exposes that fact for parents who care how their children are indoctrinated in school. They should purchase and read this book. Even if some "Lies" can be subject to discussion, it is exactly this discussion that makes this book so valuable. Parents could do much worse than go over every one of the 48 "Lies" with their children to help balance their education. Education is simply too important to be left up to teachers and educators.

Highly recommended.

The main value in this book is that it provokes debate about American history. Historians do have a tendency to present their opinions as fact, and their opinions often have more to do with ideology than hard facts. One point that should be taken seriously is that historians frequently know little or nothing about economics. The general lack of knowledge concerning economics among historians is not a problem for those who claim to be experts on social history or military history. But many historians claim expertise on matters of economic history. Alleged lie #26 (on the 1950's being a dull age of conformity) is a matter of social history. Different people can have different opinions on such matters.

On the other hand, there is no longer any doubt about the Rosenberg's and many others accused of collaboration with the Soviets. Furthermore, many of the standard lines from historians on economic issues (i.e. the need for government regulation and the causes of the Great Depression) are at very best highly questionable, if not contrary to fact.

Those who think that Schweikart is purely partisan should take note of the fact that he defends FDR and LBJ from absurd conspiracy theories (in addition to absurd 9-11 conspiracy theories). I am not sure about the extent to which these and other conspiracy theories get taught in classrooms. I also doubt that many students take such nonsense seriously. But I suppose such myths do need to be debunked.

The problem with this book is that its title discourages discussion between those who disagree on how to interpret US History. Publishers do sometimes like to use provocative titles as a marketing device, and this is likely what happened here. The title is unfortunate because many on the left should rethink their position, or at least try to engage conservatives and libertarians in more thoughtful debate. Of course, there are many on the left who are too dogmatic to ever engage in an honest debate. But there are a considerable number of people on the left who are open to real discussion who might be put off by this book's title. Try reading it anyway.