Download or read book Legends Lies Cherished Myths of World History written by Richard Shenkman and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-07-26 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Was there really a valiant little Dutch boy, a protesting Lady Godiva, a fiddling Nero, or a prudish Queen Victoria? No, says Shenkman ….No person, event, or thing is safe from Shenkman’s corrections.” —Booklist Founder of George Mason University’s History News Network and bestselling author of Presidential Ambition and One Night Stands with American History, Rick Shenkman is an historian, a rebel, and a myth debunker par excellence. In Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of World History, he explodes some of the most honored and long-held misconceptions about kings and despots, wars and empires, religions, inventions, from the glory days of the Roman Empire to the dark days of World War Two. Fascinating, edifying, and irreverent, here is the real world history you were never taught in school—for history buffs and confirmed trivia fanatics everywhere!
Download or read book Legends Lies and Cherished Myths of World History written by Richard Shenkman and published by . This book was released on 1993-10-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Legends Lies Cherished Myths of American History written by Richard Shenkman and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-03-26 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The truth and nothing but the truth—Richard Shenkman sheds light on America's most believed legends. The story of Columbus discovering the world was round was invented by Washington Irving. The pilgrims never lived in log cabins. In Concord, Massachusetts, a third of all babies born in the twenty years before the Revolution were conceived out of wedlock. Washington may have never told a lie, but he loved to drink and dance, and he fell in love with his best friend's wife. Independence wasn't declared on July 4th. There's no evidence that anyone died in a frontier shootout at high noon. After World War II, the U.S. government concluded that Japan would have surrendered within months, even if we had not bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Download or read book Legends Lies and Cherished Myths of the World History written by Richard Shenkman and published by Random House Value Pub. This book was released on 1995-02-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling author of "I Love Paul Revere, Whether He Rode or Not" now exposes the most popular myths and legends of other countries. If you think Cleopatra was beautiful, Robin Hood was a nice guy, or Napoleon was short, this book will make you think again. 12 line drawings.
Download or read book Myth America written by Kevin M. Kruse and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2023-01-03 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this instant New York Times bestseller, America’s top historians set the record straight on the most pernicious myths about our nation’s past. The United States is in the grip of a crisis of bad history. Distortions of the past promoted in the conservative media have led large numbers of Americans to believe in fictions over facts, making constructive dialogue impossible and imperiling our democracy. In Myth America, Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer have assembled an all-star team of fellow historians to push back against this misinformation. The contributors debunk narratives that portray the New Deal and Great Society as failures, immigrants as hostile invaders, and feminists as anti-family warriors—among numerous other partisan lies. Based on a firm foundation of historical scholarship, their findings revitalize our understanding of American history. Replacing myths with research and reality, Myth America is essential reading amid today’s heated debates about our nation’s past. With Essays By Akhil Reed Amar • Kathleen Belew • Carol Anderson • Kevin Kruse • Erika Lee • Daniel Immerwahr • Elizabeth Hinton • Naomi Oreskes • Erik M. Conway • Ari Kelman • Geraldo Cadava • David A. Bell • Joshua Zeitz • Sarah Churchwell • Michael Kazin • Karen L. Cox • Eric Rauchway • Glenda Gilmore • Natalia Mehlman Petrzela • Lawrence B. Glickman • Julian E. Zelizer
Download or read book History as Mystery written by Michael Parenti and published by City Lights Publishers. This book was released on 2016-08-22 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a lively challenge to mainstream history, Michael Parenti does battle with a number of mass-marketed historical myths. He shows how history's victors distort and suppress the documentary record in order to perpetuate their power and privilege. And he demonstrates how historians are influenced by the professional and class environment in which they work. Pursuing themes ranging from antiquity to modern times, from the Inquisition and Joan of Arc to the anti-labor bias of present-day history books, History as Mystery demonstrates how past and present can inform each other and how history can be a truly exciting and engaging subject. "Michael Parenti, always provocative and eloquent, gives us a lively as well as valuable critique of orthodoxy posing as 'history.'"—Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States "Deserves to become an instant classic."—Bertell Ollman, author of Dialectical Investigations "Those who keep secret the past, and lie about it, condemn us to repeat it. Michael Parenti unveils the history of falsified history, from the early Christian church to the present: a fascinating, darkly revelatory tale."—Daniel Ellsberg, author of The Pentagon Papers "Solid if surely controversial stuff."—Kirkus
Download or read book Lies Across America written by James W. Loewen and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fully updated and revised edition of the book USA Today called "jim-dandy pop history," by the bestselling, American Book Award–winning author "The most definitive and expansive work on the Lost Cause and the movement to whitewash history." —Mitch Landrieu, former mayor of New Orleans From the author of the national bestseller Lies My Teacher Told Me, a completely updated—and more timely than ever—version of the myth-busting history book that focuses on the inaccuracies, myths, and lies on monuments, statues, national landmarks, and historical sites all across America. In Lies Across America, James W. Loewen continues his mission, begun in the award-winning Lies My Teacher Told Me, of overturning the myths and misinformation that too often pass for American history. This is a one-of-a-kind examination of historic sites all over the country where history is literally written on the landscape, including historical markers, monuments, historic houses, forts, and ships. New changes and updates include: • a town in Louisiana that was the site of a major but now-forgotten enslaved persons' uprising • a totally revised tour of the memory and intentional forgetting of slavery and the Civil War in Richmond, Virginia • the hideout of a gang in Delaware that made money by kidnapping free blacks and selling them into slavery Entertaining and enlightening, Lies Across America also has a serious role to play in contemporary debates about white supremacy and Confederate memorials.
Download or read book Founding Myths written by Ray Raphael and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2014-07-04 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published ten years ago, award-winning historian Ray Raphael’s Founding Myths has since established itself as a landmark of historical myth-busting. With the author’s trademark wit and flair, Founding Myths exposes the errors and inventions in America’s most cherished tales, from Paul Revere’s famous ride to Patrick Henry’s “Liberty or Death” speech. For the seventy thousand readers who have been captivated by Raphael’s eye-opening accounts, history has never been the same. In this revised tenth-anniversary edition, Raphael revisits the original myths and explores their further evolution over the past decade, uncovering new stories and peeling back additional layers of misinformation. This new edition also examines the highly politicized debates over America’s past, as well as how school textbooks and popular histories often reinforce rather than correct historical mistakes. A book that “explores the truth behind the stories of the making of our nation” (National Public Radio), this revised edition of Founding Myths will be a welcome resource for anyone seeking to separate historical fact from fiction.
Download or read book Political Animals written by Rick Shenkman and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2016-01-05 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can a football game affect the outcome of an election? What about shark attacks? Or a drought? In a rational world the answer, of course, would be no. But as bestselling historian Rick Shenkman explains in Political Animals, our world is anything but rational. Drawing on science, politics, and history, Shenkman explores the hidden forces behind our often illogical choices. Political Animals challenges us to go beyond the headlines, which often focus on what politicians do (or say they'll do), and to concentrate instead on what's really important: what shapes our response. Shenkman argues that, contrary to what we tell ourselves, it's our instincts rather than arguments appealing to reason that usually prevail. Pop culture tells us we can trust our instincts, but science is proving that when it comes to politics our Stone Age brain often malfunctions, misfires, and leads us astray. Fortunately, we can learn to make our instincts work in our favor. Shenkman takes readers on a whirlwind tour of laboratories where scientists are exploring how sea slugs remember, chimpanzees practice deception, and patients whose brains have been split in two tell stories. The scientists' findings give us new ways of understanding our history and ourselves -- and prove we don't have to be prisoners of our evolutionary past." In this engaging, illuminating, and often riotous chronicle of our political culture, Shenkman probes the depths of the human mind to explore how we can become more political, and less animal.
Download or read book Just How Stupid Are We written by Rick Shenkman and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-07 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifty percent of Americans can name four characters from aaC--AThe Simpsons, aaC--Au but only two out of five can name all three branches of the federal government. No more than one in seven can find Iraq on a map. Just how stupid are we? Pretty stupid. In Just How Stupid Are We?, best-selling author Rick Shenkman takes aim at our great national piety: the wisdom of the American people. American democracy is as direct as it's ever beenaaC--but voters are misusing, abusing, and abdicating their political power. At once a powerful indictment of voter apathy and political indifference, Just How Stupid Are We? also provides concrete proposals for reforming our institutionsaaC--the government, the media, civic organizations, political partiesaaC--to make them work better for the American people. But first, Shenkman argues, we must reform ourselves
Download or read book Lies Damned Lies and History written by Graeme Donald and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2010-12-26 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From cats, spats and catacombs to the Wall Street shuffle, this book looks at how historical events didn't always unfold as we think they did. It takes the readers on a journey, century-by-century, showing how the truth we take for granted is a far cry from the facts. It is suitable for those who want to see the past as it was.
Download or read book Myths from Mesopotamia written by Stephanie Dalley and published by Oxford Paperbacks. This book was released on 2000 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The stories translated here all of ancient Mesopotamia, and include not only myths about the Creation and stories of the Flood, but also the longest and greatest literary composition, the Epic of Gilgamesh. This is the story of a heroic quest for fame and immortality, pursued by a man of great strength who loses a unique opportunity through a moment's weakness. So much has been discovered in recent years both by way of new tablets and points of grammar and lexicography that these new translations by Stephanie Dalley supersede all previous versions. -- from back cover.
Download or read book I Love Paul Revere written by Richard Shenkman and published by Harper Perennial. This book was released on 1992-12-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At long last in paperback, Richard Shenkman's bestselling sequel to Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of American History. Provocative and amusingly heretical, "I Love Paul Revere, Whether He Rode or Not" (a quote attributed to Warren Harding) offers eye-opening revelations debunking long-held American legends.
Download or read book Armageddon written by Clive Ponting and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifty years after the end of World War II Clive Ponting provides a major reassessment of the most destructive conflict in human history - one in which 85 million people died. Armageddon avoids conventional chronological accounts in order to concentrate on the deeper forces shaping the origins, course and outcome of the war across the globe. It analyses how and why the war spread from being a limited European conflict to the only global war, why countries were dragged into the fighting and how only a small number of neutral states escaped. It compares the two alliances, how they mobilized their resources and their strategies for victory. It avoids a detailed description of how commanders maneuvered on the battlefield and concentrates instead on the impact the war had on individual soldiers, sailors and airmen. Equally important is the fate of hundreds of millions of civilians. How did they survive occupation and what did resistance, collaboration and liberation really involve, and what happened at the end of the war? Armageddon has a truly global sweep, combined with an eye for detail, and provides fascinating comparisons from a multi-faceted war. It contains new facts, asks provocative questions and challenges many of the common assumptions about the war. It is a compelling new inquiry.
Download or read book Forget the Alamo written by Bryan Burrough and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-06-07 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller! “Lively and absorbing. . ." — The New York Times Book Review "Engrossing." —Wall Street Journal “Entertaining and well-researched . . . ” —Houston Chronicle Three noted Texan writers combine forces to tell the real story of the Alamo, dispelling the myths, exploring why they had their day for so long, and explaining why the ugly fight about its meaning is now coming to a head. Every nation needs its creation myth, and since Texas was a nation before it was a state, it's no surprise that its myths bite deep. There's no piece of history more important to Texans than the Battle of the Alamo, when Davy Crockett and a band of rebels went down in a blaze of glory fighting for independence from Mexico, losing the battle but setting Texas up to win the war. However, that version of events, as Forget the Alamo definitively shows, owes more to fantasy than reality. Just as the site of the Alamo was left in ruins for decades, its story was forgotten and twisted over time, with the contributions of Tejanos--Texans of Mexican origin, who fought alongside the Anglo rebels--scrubbed from the record, and the origin of the conflict over Mexico's push to abolish slavery papered over. Forget the Alamo provocatively explains the true story of the battle against the backdrop of Texas's struggle for independence, then shows how the sausage of myth got made in the Jim Crow South of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As uncomfortable as it may be to hear for some, celebrating the Alamo has long had an echo of celebrating whiteness. In the past forty-some years, waves of revisionists have come at this topic, and at times have made real progress toward a more nuanced and inclusive story that doesn't alienate anyone. But we are not living in one of those times; the fight over the Alamo's meaning has become more pitched than ever in the past few years, even violent, as Texas's future begins to look more and more different from its past. It's the perfect time for a wise and generous-spirited book that shines the bright light of the truth into a place that's gotten awfully dark.
Download or read book The Myth of Sisyphus And Other Essays written by Albert Camus and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-10-31 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most influential works of this century, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide; the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value of personal existence, and the possibility of life lived with dignity and authenticity.
Download or read book The Seven Big Myths about the Catholic Church written by Christopher Kaczor and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2012-08-24 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Roman Catholic Church has long been the target of suspicion and hostility. But how much of this is based on ignorance and prejudice and how much is the fruit of thoughtful consideration of the facts? This book separates fact from fiction. Without excusing or justifying wrongdoing, author Christopher Kaczor clarifies official Catholic teaching and demonstrates that much popular opinion about Catholicism is based on misunderstanding and misinformation. He also provides robust and lucid arguments for Catholic belief and practice. No one book can answer everyone's questions or objections about Catholicism, but this work examines seven of the most controversial and most common myths about the Catholic Church. The Seven Myths: The Church Opposes Science: The Myth of Catholic Irrationality The Church Opposes Freedom and Happiness: The Myth of Catholic Indifference to Earthly Welfare The Church Hates Women: The Myth of Catholic Misogyny Indifferent to Love, the Church Banned Contraception: The Myth of Opposition between Love and Procreation The Church Hates Gays: The Myth of Catholic "Homophobia" The Church Opposes Same-Sex Marriage Because of Bigotry: The Myth That There Is No Rational Basis for Limiting Marriage to One Man and One Woman Priestly Celibacy Caused the Crisis of Sexual Abuse of Minors: The Myth of Priestly Pedophilia
