Out of any book to read or study, the textbook is by far the most boring. In the textbooks they just give you the most important details. They don’t tell you the story or the minor details. They leave out the feelings of the people in the stories they are telling. This book deals with exactly this problem. Lowen tells you about everything that textbooks told you wrong because they only told you part of the story or what they thought was important. According Lowen most college students go into college knowing less about the history of their own country than other subject that they studied in high school and the years before. American History id the most disliked subject therefore the least remembered. He claims that history in one subject that…show more content… Scheffler’s Book Review) The common trend in American history is a very positive one. That is exactly the issue. He examines 12 textbooks that were in circulation in 1994 and saw the same exact theme in all of the issues. The general theme was that yes there were problems but strong wealthy white men stopped the problems. According to textbook no one in history did anything for the good of the people or for morals. They simply did it because they are American. American history textbooks show that the only reason you can win is because you are an American and if you loose it is simple because you get in the way of Americans their freedom. Also Lowen states that African Americans and Native Americans have the worst test scores on information like the racism against their people. It is immoral to make them take tests on this and difficult for them to comprehend. Publishers believe that pleasing the majority of people, being the white people, sells their textbooks. They do not really care about the minority that they are putting…show more content… In this book he states that American history textbook only include non-controversial photos like those from the Vietnam War. “That does not mean textbooks need full-colored bloody spreads of photos, but something more than a presidential handshake will be required to catch students attention, and make them think.” (Mel. Scheffler’s Book Review) Not only pictures but textbooks also exclude interesting protest and quotes like the one shouted by draft opponents on New York City streets saying “Hell No; We won’t go!” Lowen also talks about how leaving recent history out of textbooks will make students farther away from the truth but also from a fascination in past generations. All of this is put together to make up the problem of students dreading history class and trying their best to get out of them. If we fixed these problems then students would actually enjoy their American history
