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In sum, U.S. history is no more violent and oppressive than the history of England, Russia, Indonesia, or Burundi - but neither is it exceptionally less violent.

James W. Loewen

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James W. Loewen
Age: 79 †
Born: 1942
Born: February 6
Died: 2021
Died: August 19
Historian
Sociologist
University Teacher
Decatur
Illinois
James W. Loewen
Loewen
James William Loewen
England
Less
Burundi
History
Exceptionally
Indonesia
Oppressive
Violent
Russia
Neither

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Conclusions are not always pleasant.
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Cherishing Columbus is a characteristic of white history, not American history.
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Teachers need to teach the subject rather than to teach the textbook.
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Those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat the eleventh grade.
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I'm looking forward to the future, which is a good thing, because it's coming.
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Unfortunately, marketing textbooks is like marketing fishing lures: the point is to catch fishermen, not fish. Thus many adopted textbooks are flashy to catch the eye of adoption committees but dull when read by students.
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Textbooks pretty much have no real drama. They have no real storyline. To the extent they have a storyline.
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History can be a weapon, and it can be used against you.
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People have a right to their own opinions, but not to their own facts. Evidence must be located, not created, and opinions not backed by evidence cannot be given much weight.
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There's no excuse therefore, for a 1,152 page book. I think we should all be using 300-page paperbacks. These exist.
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Students will start finding history interesting when their teachers and textbooks stop lying to them.
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The world, of course, doesn't come divided into disciplines. The world just is.
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There is no excuse for these 1,152 page textbooks.
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History is important. More than any other topic, it is about us. Whether one deems our present society wondrous or awful or both, history reveals how we got to this point.
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Many Americans have never owned a book, and I'm not talking about because of the recent digital revolution. I'm talking about before there even was a digital revolution.
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Textbooks are written in an oracular monotone, so that they claim to be true and important.
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Native Americans are not and must not be props in a sort of theme park of the past, where we go to have a good time and see exotic cultures. “What we have done to the peoples who were living in North America” is, according to anthropologist Sol Tax, “our Original Sin.
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It is always useful to think badly about people one has exploited or plans to exploit.
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I often suggest in workshops that if you have 30 students in your American History course in 11th grade, or whatever grade level, that you maybe triple them up. You put, and have them choose, let's say 11 different Native American cultures. Maybe you give them a list of 15 and they choose 11 of those 15 so that they have some choice in the matter.
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I don't think teachers read the textbooks. And I don't think adoption committees read the textbooks before they adopt them. I think they look at them.
James W. Loewen