Chapter Summary Of Chapter 1 Handicapped By History
Chapter 1 Handicapped by History
Brief Summary
As the first chapter in this long analytical book, chapter one serves as the foundation for the rest of the novel, with a basic premise that “history textbooks make fool out of the students.” It shows how portrayal of historical figures and events in the best light for the reputation of United States leads to biased and distorted historical education.
Author’s Viewpoint
Loewen uses two examples—Helen Keller and Woodrow Wilson—in order to illustrate his point, and I would like to focus on the latter for this analysis. Loewen states that while Woodrow Wilson is often presented as the founder of League of Nations following World War I and the leader of progressive causes like women’s suffrage, textbooks rarely make any reference to racial segregation of federal government and his military interventions in foreign nations (22). Wilson intervened in countries like Cuba, the Dominican Republic, …show more content…
Our book, unlike the other books that Loewen mentioned, didn’t contain up to 8 pages covering Columbus. Instead it had only three, so apparently information was lacking; there was even no room for melodramatic effect that Loewen associated the textbook authors with. In page 14, it is said that Columbus discovered and shipped new plants like tobacco, maize, beans, and tomatoes and new animals like cattle, swine, but it doesn’t show any form of Indian involvement in helping the Europeans. How were they able to manage such exotic fauna and flora so well? Finally, although the book talks about the European diseases’ decreasing Indian population tremendously—it gets credit for doing so—it doesn’t even mention Columbus’s raping and torturing the natives. American Pageant did not devote much to this topic about
Brief Summary
As the first chapter in this long analytical book, chapter one serves as the foundation for the rest of the novel, with a basic premise that “history textbooks make fool out of the students.” It shows how portrayal of historical figures and events in the best light for the reputation of United States leads to biased and distorted historical education.
Author’s Viewpoint
Loewen uses two examples—Helen Keller and Woodrow Wilson—in order to illustrate his point, and I would like to focus on the latter for this analysis. Loewen states that while Woodrow Wilson is often presented as the founder of League of Nations following World War I and the leader of progressive causes like women’s suffrage, textbooks rarely make any reference to racial segregation of federal government and his military interventions in foreign nations (22). Wilson intervened in countries like Cuba, the Dominican Republic, …show more content…
Our book, unlike the other books that Loewen mentioned, didn’t contain up to 8 pages covering Columbus. Instead it had only three, so apparently information was lacking; there was even no room for melodramatic effect that Loewen associated the textbook authors with. In page 14, it is said that Columbus discovered and shipped new plants like tobacco, maize, beans, and tomatoes and new animals like cattle, swine, but it doesn’t show any form of Indian involvement in helping the Europeans. How were they able to manage such exotic fauna and flora so well? Finally, although the book talks about the European diseases’ decreasing Indian population tremendously—it gets credit for doing so—it doesn’t even mention Columbus’s raping and torturing the natives. American Pageant did not devote much to this topic about