Loewen’s work is sloppy and biased.
He states an admirable goal: to combat the slanted presentation of history. The problem is that in his zeal to achieve this end, he overcorrects, omitting facts that detract from his arguments. The result is that Loewen’s work is every bit as slanted as the work he decries; it’s just slanted in the opposite direction.
Like I said before, you shouldn’t fight lies with lies.
spoke-,
Can you give us a few examples of Loewen’s mistakes?
Just to note, a similar dissection of American history textbooks was America Revised: History Schoolbooks in the Twentieth Century, by Frances Fitzgerald back in 1980. It would be interesting to find out how the two books compared.
The problem with Loewen is that he edits the facts to fit his theses.
Captain Amazing cites one example above. In Lies Across America, Loewen seeks to prove that any historical marker that mentions Nathan Bedford Forrest is a coded tribute to the KKK. (Forrest was a Confederate general, who was also an early leader of the KKK.)
We discussed this at some length in this thread. The thread started as a discussion of the Georgia flag, but devolved into a debate over Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and (to a lesser extent) James Loewen.
Specific examples from that debate (for those who don’t want to wade through the whole thread):
(As alluded to by Captain Amazing) Loewen mentions the town of Forrest, Arkansas, and strongly implies that it was named in a tip of the cap to the KKK (Forrest having been the first grand wizard of the original KKK – not a founder, BTW). What Loewen doesn’t tell his readers is that Forrest, AK was founded by Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Loewen mentions a monument to Forrest in Gadsden, Alabama, and again strongly implies that the monument is a coded salute to the KKK. Loewen doesn’t tell his readers that Forrest, with a force of 500 men, defeated a Union force of 1700 men near Gadsden and thereby likely prevented the town from being sacked. That inconvenient fact wouldn’t fit his thesis.
Loewen cites the large number of historical markers mentioning Forrest in Tennessee and Alabama (more than mention Robert E. Lee!) and implies that the reason Forrest gets so much attention in these states is his association with the Klan. Loewen omits the critical fact that Forrest fought primarily in Tennessee and Alabama (which would explain the markers), and the fact that Lee never fought in either of those states (which would explain why Forrest has more markers than Lee).
Loewen mentions Forrest Park in Memphis, implying that it was so named for racist reasons. Loewen doesn’t tell his readers that Forrest (who resided in Memphis for many years) is buried in the park.
Loewen downplays Forrest’s military accomplishments, the better to convince his readers that monuments to Forrest are really monuments to the KKK. If I recall correctly, Loewen refers to Forrest as a “minor” general. In fact, Forrest was regarded by his contemporaries (including Lee, Johnston, Sherman and Grant) as perhaps the best fighting general the war produced. (Cites in the other thread).
Loewen says that Forrest is lionized in the South above Lee and other more accomplished generals. In fact, as any native Southerner can tell you, Lee and Jackson are the two icons of the Confederacy. Forrest doesn’t come close.
Loewen describes atrocities allegedly committed by Forrest. However, his sources (shown in his footnotes) do not support his claims. (More detail in the other thread.) (Fabricated footnotes are an unforgiveable sin for someone who wishes to be considered a serious historian.)
Loewen mentions Forrest’s leadership role in the early KKK. He doesn’t tell his readers that the KKK was founded as a social club for Confederate veterans, and that it only later devolved into vigilatism and terrorism. He doesn’t tell his readers that Forrest ordered the Klan disbanded when it turned violent, or that in his later years, Forrest gave speech after speech decrying racial violence and calling for unity of Southerners, black and white. (But of course, if Loewen gave his readers that information, Forrest would not be the one-dimensional villain Loewen wants him to be.)
Loewen doesn’t mention that the modern Klan (the one most people think of when the KKK is mentioned) was founded in 1915, 46 years after Forrest disbanded the original version. That would detract from Loewen’s desired effect of laying all of the sins of the modern KKK at Forrest’s feet.
There’s more info in the other thread, but I hope the above examples adequately illustrate my problems with Loewen. His sins are primarily sins of omission (leaving out pertinent facts, the better to grind his axe), but his fabricated footnotes prove that he is not above sins of commission, if he thinks he can get away with it.
Note: I don’t own either of Loewen’s books, though I have read them. Much of the above is from memory. Refer to the other thread for more detail.
Ack! I meant AR, not AK!
Bottom line: Loewen should be read with extreme caution. He gets a lot of things right. But then, in the interest of making his points, he gets a lot of things wrong.
His work serves a good purpose; it asks his readers to question the “history” they’ve been spoon-fed. Fair enough, but then don’t let Loewen spoon-feed you his version of history, either. Read him with a skeptical eye. Check his cites and footnotes. Consult other sources.
Not at all - just an interested amateur.
Of these, the biography by the son is one of the primary souces, though it’s clearly biased in favour of his father. Don’t know Williams or Norlander-Martinez. Sale is the most awkward case. I haven’t read it, though I followed the debate around it when it came out. And in certain quarters it has the reputation as the ultra-PC account of the Conquest. Personally, I probably won’t read it; whatever its merits, it’s surely getting dated as the piece of iconoclism and I suspect that it will be superceded as such in due course. As an amateur, I don’t have to keep up with everything. If anybody has I more informed opinion of it, either way, I’d certainly like to hear it. I expect I will read whatever does supercede it (even as polemic). However, it’s certainly a book I’d expect Loewen to have used.
Las Casas is interesting. Basically, he wrote the long book and the short one. The short one is the one I mentioned and is the one available as a Penguin Classic, whereas the long one isn’t, so far as I know, available in a current English translation. As a result, academics (and Loewen it appears) tend to refer to him in the long book, while the rest of us have to make do with the digest version. With regards to Columbus, the odd aspect of Las Casas is that, while he’s the classic historian of the Conquest being a disaster, he’s quite pro-Columbus. (Though he’s very anti Columbus’ attitude to slavery.) This has the effect that in the short version Columbus is hardly ever mentioned. He’s sort of nicely edited out. As I result, I’ll slightly revise my previous recommendation. While clearly the most intense expression of outrage at what happened, Las Casas was obviously writing polemic and it’s probably not advisable to read him in isolation. However, it’s shocking reading, even after centuries.
One clarification. Thinking about the quote from Chanca’s letter, there is the reading that “the way back” is from Spain to the New World. Columbus could thus start with seven Indians in Spain and be left with two. That’s consistent with Loewen’s numbers, though one would still like them confirmed.
[Sorry for the double post last night. I was fighting both a recalcitrant ISP and torpid hamsters at the time. Though I think it’s the first time I’ve seen someone’s post actually interrupted by those overworked beasties.]
MY teachers told me that I would use Algebra in daily life. I never have. Aside from people who have jobs that involve serious math, has anyone?
The book is quite popular at my library and we can never keep enough copies on the shelf, but that’s true with Zinn also.
I have not read the book thoroughly to coment on its value. But it is quite popular.
Another interesting sidenote: while we may lionize Columbus today, Amerigo Vespucci actually stole quite a lot of Colombus’ thunder back in the day: so much so that he ended up being the guy America ended up named after, despite having fabricated most of the heroic details that won him reknown, and despite his dishonesty being uncovered (too late) fairly recently afterwards. As Emerson wrote: he “managed in this lying world to supress Columbus and bapize half the world with his own dishonest name.”
One thing that bothered me about Loewen’s first book was his claim that you could tell people’s prejudices by whether they thought John Brown was crazy or not. He seemed to think that only racists depicted Brown as a lunatic with a patriarchal beard, and published a picture of Brown without the beard by way of proof – this was his “normal” appearance.
The thing is that, based on other sources (Richard Shenkman among them), Brown really seems to have been unbalanced, beard or no. (And no one forced him to grow that flamboyant beard)