Verified Document

Gamut Of Subjects Related To American History. Term Paper

¶ … gamut of subjects related to American history. The underlying themes of the course included race, class, gender, and power. Books such as Lies My Teacher Told Me and Zinn's People's History of the United States present a more rounded overview and analysis of historical events than what is typically offered in public school textbooks or in popular media. Modern resources ranging from newspaper and magazine articles to film and documentary productions help to round out the student's understanding of American history. The course shows that history is written by the victors, which paints a skewed and heavily biased version of events. The time has come to revise American history textbooks with a more truthful portrayal of how historical events unfolded. History has shaped, and his shaped by, sociological factors like race, class, gender, and power. Race remains one of the most important topics in American history, culture, society, and identity. The nation was built on the backs of slaves, and the repercussions of slavery still reverberate in American social life. Moreover, the new nation was founded on the presumption that the people already living here did not count. The rights of Native Americans have been systematically trampled upon, something that has been whitewashed in standard school textbooks. In Chapter 2 of Lies My Teacher Told Me, the author discusses the mythos of Christopher Columbus, and how Columbus's story has been manipulated and appropriated to perpetuate the myth of European superiority over Native Americans. Overall "the level of scholarship is discouragingly low" in American textbooks because of the need to perpetuate propaganda about European superiority (Loewen 3).

Likewise, Chapter 3 on "The Truth About the First Thanksgiving" discusses how American history can be a form of political propaganda, even more than it serves as the dissemination of knowledge. It is not just the fact that the Europeans presumed superiority; it is the continued indoctrination of school children in this matter that is the real problem. Yet the European version of history...

Thankfully, books like Loewen's are becoming increasingly more accessible and integrated into standard curricula.
Because of the importance of racism to the foundation of the nation, it is critical to focus on race in any American history course. As Zinn puts it, "There is not a country in world history in which racism has been more important, for so long a time, as the United States," (1). Yet the topic of race is approached in a way that is fallacious. Race is treated with too little attention, without properly addressing the way race has permeated every aspect of American society. Chapter 5 in Loewen's book, entitled "Gone with the Wind" like the movie, show how history books have been written in ways that erase race altogether. This is true even if "almost no genre of our popular culture goes untouched by race," (Loewen 136).

Furthermore, visual texts like the "Without Sanctuary" offer the photographic evidence to back up the written analyses provided by writers like Howard Zinn and James Loewen. Such visual evidence can and should be used more often in history textbooks because unlike current attempts to cover up reality, photographic evidence shows students exactly what happened. Students learn about Booker T. Washington instead of W.E.B. DuBois in a similar attempt to whitewash history. Howard Zinn writes about such uses of history as a weapon in Chapter 2 of A People's History of the United States. There is a "a complex web of historical threads to ensnare blacks for slavery in America," (1). Indeed, history is a weapon that is used to indoctrinate students, perpetuate myths about race, and avoid a frank and honest discussion of how racism shapes social justice and equality in the United States.

The Monumental Myths video accomplishes similar goals in transcending written text to provide a broader understanding of the darker sides of American history. Like history textbooks, monuments can be used as propaganda tools and "weapons" of…

Sources used in this document:
Works Cited

Allen, James and Littlefield, Allen. Without Sanctuary. Film retrieved: http://withoutsanctuary.org/main.html

Drum, Kevin and Gilson, Dave. "Charts: 6 Big Economic Myths, Debunked." Mother Jones. December 2011. Retrieved online: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/charts-economic-myths-jobs-deficit-taxes

Gilson, Dave. "Charts: Who are the 1%?" Mother Jones. Retrieved online: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/10/one-percent-income-inequality-OWS

Gilson, Dave. "Only Little People Pay Taxes." Retrieved online: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/taxes-richest-americans-charts-graph
Chapter 2: http://teachersites.schoolworld.com/webpages/EGlankler/files/'the%20true%20importance%20of%20christopher%20columbus'%20-%20lies%20my%20teacher%20told%20me1.pdf
Zinn, Howard. "Drawing the Color Line." Chapter 2 in A People's History of the United States. Retrieved online: http://www.edci.purdue.edu/honduras/docs/Zinn%20-%20Chapter%202%20-%20Drawing%20the%20Color%20Line.pdf
"Robber Barons and Rebels" Chapter 11: http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinnbaron11.html
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Anthropology Japanese-American Internment During the
Words: 5857 Length: 18 Document Type: Term Paper

... further, that it would be only a question of time until the entire Pacific coast region would be controlled by the Japanese.' Yet Japan's ultimate aim was not limited to California or the Pacific Coast but was global domination achieved through a race war. 'It is the determined purpose of Japan,' the report stated, 'to amalgamate the entire colored races of the world against the Nordic or white race,

History of Informatics
Words: 1016 Length: 3 Document Type: Term Paper

Health care has always been concerned about information management, especially as health care interventions and management have become increasingly complex. In spite of this, health care has weakly welcomed information technology into its midst, shunning computerized data management systems in favor of anachronistic and antiquated ones. When health care started using information technology, the role informatics played was largely ancillary. There were few specialists, and informatics were considered novel

Japanese-American Biopharmaceutical Industry in the 21st Century
Words: 20340 Length: 60 Document Type: Term Paper

Japanese-American Biopharmaceutical Industry in the 21st Century Optimizing Ethical Drug Availability Between These Two Pharmaceutical Superpowers" The Japanese-American biopharmaceutical industry represents an ongoing international effort between the two top pharmaceutical markets in the world. These two economic powers provide consumers with a majority share of all pharmaceuticals produced in the world. However, a number of pharmaceutical products that are currently available to U.S. residents are unavailable to Japanese consumers. From a humanitarian perspective, this

Cloning Has Become a Very Contentious Subject.
Words: 3743 Length: 11 Document Type: Term Paper

Cloning has become a very contentious subject. The issue of cloning has moved from the scientific arena into the cultural, religious and ethical centers of debate, for good reasons. The scientific implications of cloning affects a wide range of social and ethical concerns. The theory of cloning questions many essential areas of ethical and philosophical concern about what human life is and raises the question whether we have the right

The Important Roles Played by
Words: 8566 Length: 30 Document Type: Research Proposal

Women were also a significant part of the civilian staff, committing their abilities as typists, phone switchboard operators and facility administrators. Likewise, on the home front, women would commit their services in place of their husbands, fighting abroad. In fact, the term home front should be well understood as one coined with the psychological intention of conveying that those who were enlisted in one manner or another for civilian duty were themselves a crucial force in the

World Government
Words: 1257 Length: 4 Document Type: Essay

Government: An Unviable Solution to a Complex Need According to Anne-Marie Slaughter, "world government is both infeasible and undesirable," an assertion that is supported by the historical record as well as contemporary experiences. This paper provides a review of the relevant literature to determine why a world government is unviable, as well as the differences between a world government and global governance. A discussion concerning how these concepts relate to

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now