I bought this book while I was in college and it inspired a paper that I wrote for a history class on the politics of textbooks and the representation of Native Americans in elementary school textbooks.* It was a sweeping paper, covering textbooks from colonial America through the present, and I spent many hours in Columbia University’s teacher’s library, digging through old textbooks.

What I learned through this book is the extreme influence that populous states – namely California, Texas, and Florida – have on the textbook industry. Textbooks are expensive to put together and it is in the best financial interest of textbook publishers to practice economy of scale by limiting the product selection and tailoring the material to the largest purchasers: those three states. Unfortunately, that means that the material is slanted to appeal to the people who are in charge of the educational systems in those states. I’m not sure what’s going on in California** but you can easily guess, from what you hear in the news, what is happening in Florida and Texas. Don’t assume, if you live in New York or Chicago, that your textbooks are bias-free: you’re probably subject to textbooks that are designed to appeal to Florida and Texas.

If you’re a parent, I suggest that you ask your children what they are learning and then provide appropriate reading material that provides other perspectives and / or have conversations to put what the school is feeding them in context for your kids. Don’t yell at the teacher – the teacher didn’t pick the textbook, the school board did, and they probably had a limited budget because nobody likes to pay taxes, and taxes fund the schools. If you’re in Florida or Texas and don’t like what the textbooks say, do something about it: run for the school board or support candidates who reflect your appreciation for historical facts. Go ahead – don’t let the crazies have all the fun.

My husband had a job a few years ago when he worked for an organization that promoted policy debate in underserved high schools. His organization taught teachers how to start and coach debate teams; provided research materials; ran a summer camp that prepared students for each year’s topic; and recruited judges for and hosted monthly tournaments for 400+ students. These kids were enthusiastic debaters – many of them were recruited by top-notch schools, becoming the first people in their families to go to college. But one of the problems they had was that they learned too much while researching their debate topics and weren’t afraid to share what they learned – especially in class, if the textbook was wrong. The poor teachers – just trying to teach to the test using the materials provided, that they were required to use by the school board – found themselves on the losing end of well-informed debates with students who had developed research skills, loud voices, and rational arguments – and weren’t afraid to use them to correct the “history” being taught in school.

Well, here it is, looooong after I wrote this stupid college paper and I am still fired up by this book. I have since supplemented it with books like Shenkman’s Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of American History and Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me. Often, we don’t know that we’ve been fed misinformation in school: I suspected that I wasn’t receiving the whole story – my high school history books ended before Vietnam after all – and I made it a point, especially after reading this book to seek out the missing information. I think that’s what led me into reading Doonesbury: Trudeau made it easy to follow what the heck was going after my history book left off, and to put it in context.

So if you want to get fired up about the education that you received – or your kids are receiving – give America Revised a read.

And then do something about it.

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^{*Spoiler: it’s not good. It was bad, it got worse, it had the potential to get a little better, but instead it got worse still. I haven’t read an elementary school textbook since I wrote my paper: I can only hope it has gotten better. You would think it would have. But, after what has been happening recently, I’m not holding my breath.}

^{**Is anybody, ever?}