Lies My Teacher Told Me (46 page)

Thomas Jefferson surely had it right when he urged the teaching of political history so
that Americans might learn “how to judge for themselves what will secure or endanger their
freedom.” Citizens who are their own historians, willing to identify lies and distortions and able
to use sources to determine what really went on in the past, become a formidable force for
democracy. Hugh Trevor-Roper, the dean of British historians, has written, “A nation that
has lost sight of its history, or is discouraged from the study of it by the desiccating
professionalism [or unprofessionalism!] ofits historians, is intellectually and perhaps
politically amputated. But that history must be true history in the fullest sense.” After
the eleven years of research and writing that went into this book,Ji my own quest to know what truly happened in our American past has only begun. After
reading all this way, so has yours. Bon voyage to us both!