Re-thinking History: Improving History Textbooks in America Essay

Since introducing his book with the notion that high school students hate history, Loewen (1996) devotes a considerable amount of his work debunking facts and theories taught in history classes in American schools. He appeals to the trust of the readers with his comparisons on what textbooks include and what they omit. He accomplishes this by recounting some sparse facts taught in most textbooks, appealing to the emotions of all former, current and future history students with his empathy on how boring most history textbook. Finally, he reaches the logic of his readers with heavily pocked paragraphs footnoted with his sources that presume his great understanding of the history itself. The scope and size of history textbooks is an issue Loewen tackles, pointing out how â€Å"textbook authors tend to include most of the trees and all too many twigs, they neglect to give the readers even a glimpse of what they might find memorable: the forests† (para 14). As he intertwines much of his ideas about history with Sociology and Social Studies, he notes that students rarely possess the ability to â€Å"think coherently about social life† (para 14) and returns to the concept that learning history reinforces sociology when he concludes his theory about textbook size preventing students from learning history. He describes how textbook covers use patriotic symbolism to represent the contents of the textbook material, complete with descriptive titles such as Rise of the American Nation (para 12). From this, he deducts that no other textbook cover takes as many liberties with the textbook title as do History textbooks. Loewen selects an iconic point, the First Thanksgiving, taught in some manner among nearly all grade levels and provides illuminating d... ...g buried items, he lists a footnote to accompany the passage. After observing 40 other footnotes in the previous 46 paragraphs, it’s likely that most readers would simply assume that the footnote leads to another reputable source. Discovering that this particular footnote relates to the fairytale of Goldilocks and not the journal’s author may lead one to believe that the footnote source is questionable. Loewen provides a convincing account of what he finds wrong with history textbooks used in schools around America. His appeal to readers influences their opinions on what textbook publishers should do to change this phenomenon. While history textbooks are boring, oversized and sometimes less detail oriented than Loewen would expect, high school courses simply do not teach and address the sort of sociological impacts that students in higher education expect to learn.