Actually, labdude, Loewen generally calls for more readings of original sources. He does not actually call for a point of view. As he notes, the existing books already have a point of view: “The U.S. has become the greatest country in the world by simply drifting along without anyone making a tough decision and the mistakes that we might have made (e.g., slavery) were simply accidents that occurred and were corrected.”
You are right that far too many kids come away with an appalling ignorance of history. Turning history books into chronologies to be memorized won’t help that.
Consider a few instances of confusion by folks in the U.S.:
During the Yanqui go Home! protests that were more prevalent in Latin America 30 years ago, I often heard statements such as “It’s all communist inspired!” and “Why are they mad at us? We’ve never done anything to them!”
Perhaps if more people in the U.S. had been aware that the U. S. has sponsored over 80 military interventions in Latin America in the last 150 years, generally for the purpose of imposing authoritarian governments or dictatorships friendly to U.S. business, folks would have been less confused as to why they were angry (and why those nasty communists found it so easy to whip up antagonism).
Every time an affirmative action thread shows up, several people will post that their ancestors were European immigrants and so had no part in the suppression of blacks.
Even if AA is completely wrongheaded, we need to recognize that while the South was suppressing blacks using Jim Crow, the North was deliberately importing European immigrants to drive down the pay scales of labor–and force blacks out of the Northern labor market. No immigrant came here with the intention of hurting black people, but their arrival was the tool to maintain black subjugation for an additional 50 - 70 years.
We spent the better part of 60 years villifying the U.S.S.R. for wanting to “conquer the world.” Every attempt by the U.S.S.R. to make itself more secure was pointed out as an act of aggression. This ignores the fact that while they never invaded the U.S., the U.S. did invade the U.S.S.R.
Without in any way denying the philosophical goals of Trotsky and Lenin, and certainly without attempting to justify the horrors perpetrated by Stalin, a reading of actual events (the U.S.S.R. suffered three separate invasions in 22 years) indicates that conquering Eastern Europe and establishing the Warsaw Pact very likely had more to do with providing a buffer against invasion than it did a desire to “conquer” the world–especially after the first wave of Marxists had died off.
In other words, real historical events have led to the tensions and misunderstandings from which we still suffer. Knowing a list of dates for easily recognized events does nothing to help this country deal with the tensions among its citizens or with people from other countries.
Loewen’s point is that current history text books present none of this. He argues that reading actual history, rather than pablum text, will hold the students’ interest more while providing them with a better genuine understanding of their country and their world.