Baby Got Books

Truthiness and Falsiness

I just finished a couple of political works back-to-back, so I thought I’d post on them together. Sort of like a two-for-one special. Or half-off. Or something like that.

First up was Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, by James W. Loewen. This was another one of those books that was on my bookshelf, despite my having no idea how it got there. But given the struggles I’d been having in the world of fiction, I thought I’d give it a shot.

To say that the message of this book was startling might be an understatement. Loewen talks in depth about how so many critical events in our nation’s history have been inaccurately recounted in our history books. Many of these events are somewhat well-known (e.g., the mistreatment of Native Americans by explorers and settlers, including the bizarre twisting of the tale of the first Thanksgiving), but others were sort of news to me (e.g., the falsification of what truly happened during Reconstruction). I couldn’t possibly summarize all of Loewen’s alleged inaccuracies or the evidence he uses to back them up, but suffice it to say that if he’s only half right, our history books are all wrong. I think this book is a must-read for anyone who considers him or herself a history buff.

Next up, by complete coincidence, was Stephen Colbert’s I Am America (And So Can You!). I had read Jon Stewart’s America: The Book, and that book was absolute, no doubt about it, top shelf political humor. I think I’ll probably read that one again, maybe several times. In fact, if I read it this year (timing uncertain), add that to my “Best Of” list.

Well, given the connection between Colbert and Stewart, I thought I’d give this book a spin (pun intended). I watch the Colbert Report on occasion, and he’s a pretty funny guy. Unfortunately, stretching his schtick over the course of 200+ pages gets a little tiring. I appreciate what he’s trying to do, but the egomaniacal right-wing bullsh*t positions as applied to every subject ranging from family, to animals, to dating, to science, plus all of the expected topics (race, religion, the media, etc.) just wore kind of thin. Don’t get me wrong — there are some funny spots in the book — it’s just that you can only laugh at the same joke so many times before you tire of it (unless that joke is “The Aristocrats”).

Books, Non-Fiction, Review | Shaft | January 4, 2008 1:15 pm

2 Comments

By Tim, January 4, 2008 @ 1:58 pm

Let me get this straight – right rhetoric grew tiresome? How can this be?
By Herman Glimscher, January 7, 2008 @ 3:22 pm

I read Lies My Teacher Told Me a while ago, and it is a great book. I loved how he he’d interpret the real history from his liberal/left perspective and then immediately put forward a valid interpretation from a conservative/right perspective. It was fascinating and enlightening, and, I think, a book that should handed out on street corners for free.