222 of 297 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great articles that will give you fresh insight into 48 issues in American History, September 8, 2008
While I think the title of the book is needlessly provocative, I think this a very useful book for anyone who has been subjected to the kind of indoctrination that passes for history education in too many of our public schools and colleges. If you are looking for some quick information on these four dozen issues, this can help you pass on some solid information that probably runs counter to what your friends believe is so. I said the title is needlessly provocative because not all liberals buy into the points of view this book argues against. However, Larry Schweikart is correct that there is a general cultural agenda that supports the liberal view of things. He starts off each article with two or three short quotes from liberal histories that are countered in that article.
The articles cover notions of America's role in the world since the founding, the issues in the various wars we have fought, what FDR knew about Pearl Harbor, Truman and the Atomic Bomb, the JFK assassination, Reagan, key liberal causes such as Sacco and Vanzetti, the Rosenbergs, the Scopes Trial, Columbus and the death of millions of Indians, that pesky wall between Church and State, Women's Rights in early American, the Settling of America and the Indians, and the Robber Barons. Modern issues such as Iraq, 9/11, Global Warming, Media Bias, Educational Bias, and the social theories about our Constitution are also covered. Schweikart admits that saying that the 9/11 conspiracy nuts are liberal is a stretch, but he says he wanted to head off the kind of shoulder shrugs modern texts give to the JFK assassination conspiracy nonsense.
The articles are all relatively short and pack a punch. I am absolutely positive that it will annoy liberals a great deal and some of them will attack the book without bothering to read it. I guess that is a side benefit of the book. Its real point is to push back against what some are trying to make dominant and accepted without critique. Of course, wanting to indoctrinate students is a matter of faith rather than scholarship or education.
If you home school you will definitely want that as an addition to your readings in American History.
You will also want to look at Schweikart's `A Patriot's History of the United States".
A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
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138 of 187 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Check an old encyclopedia, December 15, 2008
We still have an edition World Book Encyclopedia published in 1984 and one published in 1965. It is interesting to verify his complaints about modern text books. The re-writing of history is most disburbing. Find an old encyclopedia and check it out for yourself unless you are old enough to actually remember some of the events of the 1940's till today like I am. Many of us are still around who remember when the nasty lies about the USA were told by our enemies; not by our text books, movies, etc. After verifying facts for yourself, please take action to break this pattern of self-destruction. Please confront your local school boards when you find lies in text books. Hit the text book publishers in the "pocket book." One test is that if a text gets Reagan right, it might be OK. Surely you are old enough to remember those actual events!
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117 of 162 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
48 Lies is a Great Book for Students (and Teachers), September 10, 2008
Professor Schweikart has written a valuable and timely book. He takes on rampant political correctness in the writing of history texts and comes through with a five star performance. He is an expert on U. S. economic history but his breadth is apparent when he takes on standard leftist biases in diplomatic history as well as political history. One interesting thing Schweikart notices is that often a liberal slant will emerge on a topic and become entrenched in the texts. Then other historians will test the liberal idea and find many facts to contradict it. However, the history texts do not make the corrections and the bias is passed on to future generations. Schweikart shows this to be the case in the view of the motives in writing the Constitution and also in the Sacco and Vanzetti case (among others). Schweikart is an expert on economic history, but is very capable when exposing biases on Ronald Reagan, JFK, and LBJ. His emphasis is on modern U. S. history, but he is also excellent describing the first Thanksgiving, Thomas Jefferson, and the Mexican and Spanish American Wars.
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