I'm reading Lies My Teacher taught Me. It's really good, but it's also getting me really worked up. It's about how kids aren't interested in history classes because our textbooks gloss over the interesting parts of history, and instead make it about facts that children have to memorize. They don't want you to analyze history--you're supposed to accept everything that the textbooks tell you.
But history isn't made out of facts at all! Everything is subjective, everything is conjecture based on evidence, everything is controversy. Was the Black Death the Bubonic Plague, or something else (hint: it's not Bubonic Plague)? Was there 10 million people living in what is now the US in 1492, or was there 1 million? None of us was there so it's impossible to know. And what makes it interesting is that it's discussable. You can have different opinions based on different evidence.
Did you know that Helen Keller was a radical communist? But we don't want people to know that because then how can she be an inspiration? Communism is bad, after all. And Woodrow Wilson? Total racist who was largely uninterested in progressive causes. Not only that, but he intervened in Latin America more than any other president. But we want to champion him as the man of self-sovereignty, a man who ushered in a new era of freedom. The point of the book so far is that by diluting and skewing history for our political motives, we take a lot of the point out of it.
If there's anyone who is at all interested in history, I would recommend it highly. And if you're not interested in history, maybe it'll change that.
I consider myself someone who pretty much knows about Helen Keller, and I DID NOT KNOW THAT. That book sounds totally interesting. And I am a person who hated history in school, but who loves it when my cousin or sister tells me the interesting parts of it.
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