Lies My Teacher Told Me

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong is sociologist James W. Loewen's 1995 examination of twelve of the most widely used American high school history textbooks (expanded to include five more in a 2007 revised edition). Loewen argues that these textbooks present a falsely heroic, Eurocentric, and often factually inaccurate account of the American past, one that flattens historical figures into one-dimensional icons and glosses over uncomfortable episodes rather than engaging with them.

The book examines how textbooks handle subjects including Christopher Columbus and early European contact with Native Americans, the history of American slavery and its legacy, and the "heroification" of historical figures into simplified, uncontroversial symbols rather than complex people. Loewen draws on his own research into how textbooks are written, adopted, and taught to argue that this sanitized version of history leaves students bored, misinformed, and unprepared to think critically about their country.

Since its original publication, the book has won the American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship, sold well over a million copies, and been adapted into a Young Readers' Edition (2019) and a graphic adaptation (2024).