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Miseducating Americans

Distortions of Historical Understanding

Richard F Hamilton author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Inc

Published:28th Feb '15

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Miseducating Americans cover

In Miseducating Americans, Richard F. Hamilton examines accounts of American history appearing in textbooks and popular accounts and compares these with the reports contained in scholarly monographs. The task: to determine how certain myths and misconstructions became accepted as recorded history. Hamilton provides much needed correction of those misleading accounts.

Was America historically the "land of the free?" Not if you take into account slavery, discrimination, and post-Civil War segregation policies. Was America in the late nineteenth century truly expansionist, as American textbooks imply, or did it actually capitalize on unexpected political and economic opportunities, like Russia's desire to rid itself of Alaska? Was the acquisition of the Philippines a zealous profit-seeking effort aiming for "the China market," or the fortuitous consequences of a move against Spain during the Spanish-American War?

Miseducating Americans debunks many commonly accepted explanations of historical facts. It contends that many accounts are oversimplifications, and some are one-sided depictions of virtue. Hamilton traces the sources of these misconstructions, which mostly come from history textbooks written by authors aiming for "popular audiences." He then offers explanations as to how and why the inaccuracies have been repeated and passed on.

"Miseducating Americans: Distortions of Historical Understanding examines accounts of American history appearing in textbooks and popular accounts and compares them with the reports in scholarly monographs, considering how myths came to be considered as recorded history and taken as truth. The difference between this coverage and other examinations of American historical record is its focus on textbook history and how it's presented. Chapters debunk common explanations of American historical fact and, even more importantly, consider how these reconstructions of fact arose, and the social and political pressures surrounding them. The result is a solid college-level examination of how inaccuracies were created and passed on: key for any discussion about how American historical fact has evolved." - California Bookwatch

ISBN: 9781412855013

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 521g

298 pages