What do you think?
Rate this book
Lies They Teach in School: Exposing the Myths Behind 250 Commonly Believed Fallacies
It is a cliché that history is written by the victors, but what we accept as history is replete with stories of great men and events that either never happened or didn’t happen the way we were told they did. Such items are taught in schools. They are passed down to us by our families and friends and have become part of our shared cultural knowledge. And they are wrong. Touching on a number of topics— including history, current events, government, sports, geography, and popular culture—Lies They Teach in School exposes errors that have been perpetuated for far too long. It will enlighten and entertain. It will certainly start a number of arguments, and settle a few others.
177 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 1, 2012
422 people are currently reading
494 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
August 9, 2019
A poor imitation
Review of Kindle edition
Publication date: May 1, 2012
Publisher: Skyhorse
Language: English
ASIN: B00872FQZ2
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 7523 🔚
177 pages
In his preface, Mr. Reich wrote, "In college, I remember alienating a few professors by frequently asking “How can we be sure?” or “Where is it written and by whom?”
Good questions which we should always ask but perhaps not out loud of people who are grading us. Unfortunately Mr. Reich does not answer these questions. Instead, he states generalities without any reference as to where he found either them or his information refuting them. Frequently these generalities are obviously strawmen set up solely for the purpose of demolition. He offers no footnotes, bibliography or any type of reference for his information which is alleged to be erroneously taught or for his refutations of that information.
This is a poorly assembled work possibly compiled to profit from the success of a similarly titled book by James W. Loewen, LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME: EVERYTHING YOUR AMERICAN HISTORY TEXTBOOK GOT WRONG.
Review of Kindle edition
Publication date: May 1, 2012
Publisher: Skyhorse
Language: English
ASIN: B00872FQZ2
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 7523 🔚
177 pages
In his preface, Mr. Reich wrote, "In college, I remember alienating a few professors by frequently asking “How can we be sure?” or “Where is it written and by whom?”
Good questions which we should always ask but perhaps not out loud of people who are grading us. Unfortunately Mr. Reich does not answer these questions. Instead, he states generalities without any reference as to where he found either them or his information refuting them. Frequently these generalities are obviously strawmen set up solely for the purpose of demolition. He offers no footnotes, bibliography or any type of reference for his information which is alleged to be erroneously taught or for his refutations of that information.
This is a poorly assembled work possibly compiled to profit from the success of a similarly titled book by James W. Loewen, LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME: EVERYTHING YOUR AMERICAN HISTORY TEXTBOOK GOT WRONG.
July 12, 2014
A more accurate title might be "Slight Misconceptions and Semantic Quibblings You Might Pick Up from the Mass Media," but that probably wasn't as marketable.
February 9, 2015
The information found here is interesting. My husband, a history enthusiast, and I enjoyed reading the book together and discussing the content. There are some questionable "fallacies" and some things that we were already aware were not true. For the most part, though, the author did a good job of presenting information that is interesting and unknown. I only offered three stars due to the writing style. The 'tongue in cheek' presentation grew annoying at one point, and there were some dull moments that made following the book through somewhat difficult.
January 8, 2020
A lot of these I had already heard about, nothing really groundbreaking. A lot were also very nit-picky. Like Washington not being the first president of the US because the Articles of Confederation had a presiding president.
The only one that I disagreed with was the one about Eve from the Christian Bible. The story of Adam and Eve is that, just a story. I felt in shouldn't be included in a book like this which is about finding the true facts.
The only one that I disagreed with was the one about Eve from the Christian Bible. The story of Adam and Eve is that, just a story. I felt in shouldn't be included in a book like this which is about finding the true facts.
October 31, 2020
Waste of time! I understand the dumbing down of America, but we're not all beyond hope.
October 14, 2023
Well written, but disappointing. I think I knew 90% of these 'surprising' facts and I would hope most other people would too, especially considering the prevalence of 'lists of surprising facts' that are on the internet. What would be surprising, is finding anyone who still believes any of this hokum.
February 11, 2018
A bunch of minor trivia about unimportant things; basically one page "gotchas" about commonly believed things which turn out to be false due to technicalities (e.g. Jackie Robinson not being the first black baseball player because there was an Ohio guy from the 1880s.). The good thing is they're short on or two page stories about history, but none of them were particularly interesting.
January 22, 2020
Somewhat random and often only superficially busted, Herb Reich goes through 250 rifts without many themes connecting them. While I did learn some interesting facts in a breezy way, most of the facts weren't particularly important or I had not heard taught in school in many decades. It's worth reading for a few interesting factiods and for a very readable style, but it's not mind-blowing.
December 24, 2020
Once again, everything I think about this book has been better said by someone else like "Jennifer".
A more accurate title might be "Slight Misconceptions and Semantic Quibblings You Might Pick Up from the Mass Media," but that probably wasn't as marketable.
This book was worth flipping through and then returning to the library shelf unborrowed!
From Charles Van Buren; Frequently his generalities are obviously strawmen set up solely for the purpose of demolition. He offers no footnotes, bibliography or any type of reference for his information which is alleged to be erroneously taught or for his refutations of that information.
This is a poorly assembled work possibly compiled to profit from the success of a similarly titled book by James W. Loewen, LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME: EVERYTHING YOUR AMERICAN HISTORY TEXTBOOK GOT WRONG.
A lot of these I had already heard about, nothing really groundbreaking. A lot were also very nit-picky. Like Washington not being the first president of the US because the Articles of Confederation had a presiding president.
A more accurate title might be "Slight Misconceptions and Semantic Quibblings You Might Pick Up from the Mass Media," but that probably wasn't as marketable.
This book was worth flipping through and then returning to the library shelf unborrowed!
From Charles Van Buren; Frequently his generalities are obviously strawmen set up solely for the purpose of demolition. He offers no footnotes, bibliography or any type of reference for his information which is alleged to be erroneously taught or for his refutations of that information.
This is a poorly assembled work possibly compiled to profit from the success of a similarly titled book by James W. Loewen, LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME: EVERYTHING YOUR AMERICAN HISTORY TEXTBOOK GOT WRONG.
A lot of these I had already heard about, nothing really groundbreaking. A lot were also very nit-picky. Like Washington not being the first president of the US because the Articles of Confederation had a presiding president.
August 16, 2022
No way I’m finishing this piece of doodoo. I want my $1.99 back.
June 15, 2023
This was an interesting book. I was familiar with some of the facts shared here by the author, but there were a lot of new ones, too. The book is written in short chunks, each dealing with a myth or commonly held belief about history or historical figures. He also included some shorter corrections that didn't require as much explanation. While I found this book interesting and enlightening, I wasn't a huge fan of the style of the book. The facts were all introduced with a statement of something we most likely believed to be true and then the statement "Don't you believe it." For me, this format got old. I can see it as a clever device to introduce each section, but I personally was not a fan by the end of the book. Still, this book was worth the read and I definitely learned some new things
January 1, 2015
If you're looking to un-learn some of the things your history teachers taught you back in the day, this is the book for you!
This was a quick read, but it was pretty interesting. There's a lot of info I had never seen before, and I got to feel smart a few times when I came across something I already knew.
This was a quick read, but it was pretty interesting. There's a lot of info I had never seen before, and I got to feel smart a few times when I came across something I already knew.
April 1, 2018
Meh
So so. Difficult to get pass the ridiculous amount of spelling errors. Doesn't give much credence to the facts. Meh.
So so. Difficult to get pass the ridiculous amount of spelling errors. Doesn't give much credence to the facts. Meh.
January 18, 2022
It’s alright and there are a few interesting tidbits here and there, but many of the entries are just nitpicky little details that are only of interest to fussy scholars with pocket protectors and a jeweler’s loupe (yes, just one - they’re all fighting over it, to making things interesting).
And this trifling pedantry would be fine enough to sate history’s own CinemaSins cult, but just like CinemaSins, at some point it fails to glut itself on even petty analytics and then has to take the piss from matters where there isn’t even a decisive conclusion, or where the answer is vague, or even to confirm, “Yes, this happened.” Stick to your premise, man - 1) most of these things weren’t even taught in school, 2) many of them aren’t lies but details such as “there were actually 110 casualties…not 102” and 3) some of them are matters of opinion, like, “there’s no such thing as prognostication”. What? Materialist chip on your shoulder much, Mr. Reich? No schoolteacher ever told me Nostradamus was a psychic, so it’s kind of a bizarre tangent for him to launch into.
So overall, not very polished or professional in its editing. Fails to stay on track & gets a bit petty & otherwise dull many times. The prose are about as engaging as grade school sums typed in MS Notepad. There was a chance for poetry in these recounting of history, but for the most part it is dry, lacking in both humor and beauty, with the cold clinical eye of a communist party boss attempting to correct your glassy-eyed regurgitation of school lessons, often with meticulous attention to arguably trivial minutiae, and other times simply to be more in line with his own world view or understanding.
However, along those lines, my favorite bit was the part about the Red Square, where this evocative paragraph resides:
“The Red Square, known for the grand military displays paraded there during the Soviet era, is the legendary cobbled plaza that sits at the heart of the Russian capital. On one side is the Kremlin, with Lenin’s tomb situated prominently below its redbrick wall; on the other is the enormous GUM department store. At the south end is the whimsical St. Basil’s Cathedral, its world-famous onion domes dating from the sixteenth century. The north end houses the State Historical Museum with its twin pointed spires.
On the site of the old city’s marketplace, Red Square has been described as Moscow’s version of the Roman Forum—a vast meeting place for public functions and government pronouncements, for celebrations, for executions under several tsars, and for rock concerts by Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
Given the juxtaposed content this little gem is sandwiched betwixt, I’m inclined to think this brilliance was accidental. But to imagine the eons cascading off the shoulders of this heroic stage for mankind’s pageant, cycling between the bloody courts of czars, Bolsheviks and capitalist pop productions, was quite haunting.
And this trifling pedantry would be fine enough to sate history’s own CinemaSins cult, but just like CinemaSins, at some point it fails to glut itself on even petty analytics and then has to take the piss from matters where there isn’t even a decisive conclusion, or where the answer is vague, or even to confirm, “Yes, this happened.” Stick to your premise, man - 1) most of these things weren’t even taught in school, 2) many of them aren’t lies but details such as “there were actually 110 casualties…not 102” and 3) some of them are matters of opinion, like, “there’s no such thing as prognostication”. What? Materialist chip on your shoulder much, Mr. Reich? No schoolteacher ever told me Nostradamus was a psychic, so it’s kind of a bizarre tangent for him to launch into.
So overall, not very polished or professional in its editing. Fails to stay on track & gets a bit petty & otherwise dull many times. The prose are about as engaging as grade school sums typed in MS Notepad. There was a chance for poetry in these recounting of history, but for the most part it is dry, lacking in both humor and beauty, with the cold clinical eye of a communist party boss attempting to correct your glassy-eyed regurgitation of school lessons, often with meticulous attention to arguably trivial minutiae, and other times simply to be more in line with his own world view or understanding.
However, along those lines, my favorite bit was the part about the Red Square, where this evocative paragraph resides:
“The Red Square, known for the grand military displays paraded there during the Soviet era, is the legendary cobbled plaza that sits at the heart of the Russian capital. On one side is the Kremlin, with Lenin’s tomb situated prominently below its redbrick wall; on the other is the enormous GUM department store. At the south end is the whimsical St. Basil’s Cathedral, its world-famous onion domes dating from the sixteenth century. The north end houses the State Historical Museum with its twin pointed spires.
On the site of the old city’s marketplace, Red Square has been described as Moscow’s version of the Roman Forum—a vast meeting place for public functions and government pronouncements, for celebrations, for executions under several tsars, and for rock concerts by Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
Given the juxtaposed content this little gem is sandwiched betwixt, I’m inclined to think this brilliance was accidental. But to imagine the eons cascading off the shoulders of this heroic stage for mankind’s pageant, cycling between the bloody courts of czars, Bolsheviks and capitalist pop productions, was quite haunting.
December 20, 2017
Mostly a trivia book that includes some gems that have been long touted in school, although most of them, although they may be emphasized by teachers, are generally details that aren't realemphasized treated as important. It was kind of interesting, but not such a big deal, and really a lot of the facts are kind of on the order of "ho-hum"…
July 9, 2018
Amusing ... but, Can U Trust It ... ?
The Reader would be tasked with double-checking everything written in this book, to try and know (FOR SURE???) if this compilation is any more trustworthy than the books previous read (and written) that might say otherwise. So? It THIS a good book? Sure! But don’t trust it any further than you can throw it1
The Reader would be tasked with double-checking everything written in this book, to try and know (FOR SURE???) if this compilation is any more trustworthy than the books previous read (and written) that might say otherwise. So? It THIS a good book? Sure! But don’t trust it any further than you can throw it1
March 15, 2020
This book, originally published in 2010, covers some of the fallacies I included in my coursework when I taught EN 140: Rhetoric and Critical Thinking and other classes.
These fallacies remind us to double check our knowledge and our presentations before we share though, of course, we are all fallible, especially me. :-)
These fallacies remind us to double check our knowledge and our presentations before we share though, of course, we are all fallible, especially me. :-)
December 3, 2017
LIES THEY TEACH IN SCHOOL
Taught for 23 years. Would have loved to have had this sitting on the right hand side of my desk. What a way to start the day with the students. WAKE THEM UP!!!! 😁
Taught for 23 years. Would have loved to have had this sitting on the right hand side of my desk. What a way to start the day with the students. WAKE THEM UP!!!! 😁
July 14, 2019
This is a light book with short chapters that you can easily read when you can't quite fall asleep. Generally, each chapter will offer random set of facts that are informative and entertaining.
I don't remember encountering too many of these lies in school, but thin I was not educated in the United States! And for book premised on the ignorance of others, it is jarring to find that tourists visit England to see Westminster Cathedral (rather than Westminster Abbey) or that pharmaceutical companies might direct research towards antibiotics to cure the common cold.
I don't remember encountering too many of these lies in school, but thin I was not educated in the United States! And for book premised on the ignorance of others, it is jarring to find that tourists visit England to see Westminster Cathedral (rather than Westminster Abbey) or that pharmaceutical companies might direct research towards antibiotics to cure the common cold.
January 2, 2020
Pretty interesting look at common fallacies. Too few sources for my liking given that it was about unmasking the truth of what people say based on just what this author says, without too much evidence
September 6, 2022
For the set out purpose- the author, Herb Reich, reaches his goal.
I knew the answer to many of these false claims through history, but I could never explain them as succinctly as Mr. Reich does.
There are a few nice surprises in this book, especially concerning Alaska!
I knew the answer to many of these false claims through history, but I could never explain them as succinctly as Mr. Reich does.
There are a few nice surprises in this book, especially concerning Alaska!
November 17, 2022
For someone who doesn’t “take people’s word for it,” the author expects us to believe everything in his book without including references to back up his information. I can’t be the only one who sees the irony here. Also, many of the myths disputed are nit-picky and not that important.
April 2, 2025
I know 30% of these facts (I am not an American so some topics are unknown to me). They are more like a common knowledge misconceptions than things they teach in schools. I am still reading this book, I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone more than 13 years old- but for kids it is fine, they may enjoy or even learn something.
January 22, 2018
Slightly interesting points of trivia.
March 10, 2018
Fascinating, but silly.
June 11, 2019
Just OK
More of a rambling dissertation of truths becoming false becoming truths. A lot of this was already known to most people who had a decent history teacher.
More of a rambling dissertation of truths becoming false becoming truths. A lot of this was already known to most people who had a decent history teacher.
June 28, 2019
Not overly impressed
It was mainly just a bunch of quick facts that only took up about a page each. I felt that it didn’t go into enough detail.
It was mainly just a bunch of quick facts that only took up about a page each. I felt that it didn’t go into enough detail.
August 8, 2019
The book as interesting, but a little suspect in some areas, IMHO. Not really very interesting
August 18, 2019
Not what I expected
The book was not quite what I expected. I found it to be very disappointing. I wouldn't recommend the book.
The book was not quite what I expected. I found it to be very disappointing. I wouldn't recommend the book.
December 29, 2019
Nice collection of fully accepted half truths
Interesting set. Loved the one about the meaning of thumbs up. Easy reading, very enjoyable and yes, informative. Very Good
Interesting set. Loved the one about the meaning of thumbs up. Easy reading, very enjoyable and yes, informative. Very Good
Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews