Lies They Teach in School: Exposing the Myths Behind 250 Commonly Believed Fallacies

Caveat: For me, this book was a wallbanger. I made it about 30 pages before giving up.There are problems with the title of this book:* The 250 little "factoids" (some are facts, some are not) presented here are mostly not lies, but little nitpicky corrections: "People believe X, but actually there's an insignificant corner case."* Only a tiny percentage of the factoids are ever taught in school. The title is an obvious attempt to piggyback on the positive publicity of James Loewen's classic Lies My Teacher Told Me, which does everything this book does not.* There are precious few myths, and precious few fallacies. Almost none of the factoids are "commonly believed": they read like a trivia quiz.At least "Don't you believe it!" is accurate: a bunch of the stuff in this book is simply wrong. There are no references for any of the "facts" given. The writing style is pedantic and annoying.I think I spent a dollar on the ebook version of this title. I overpaid.

What an atrocious book!!!!. I feel sorry for Herb Reich if these are things he learned in school. The things he cites are far from"commonly believed fallacies". His rebuttals are entirely undocumented and have no academic merit. Some of the items,like "bureaucracy", do not even list any statement which can be taken as fallacious or not; instead of presenting a "fallacy" he relates a rather uninteresting, undocumented anecdote. I have most of the books that I have ever purchased. I can think of only two that have no value whatsoever. This is one of them.

I looked for a bibliography, and did not see one. I tell my students, "Cite your source." I am therefore reading it with a certain amount of skepticism. It is an entertaining read, and so far, no surprises, but I do wish that there were authenticating data and traceable sources.

Some very interesting stories and some very political, worthless junk. The author should have stuck with the school lies and not created his own "fact checking" truths which weren't true.

Overall, this is a good book for anyone’s library. The writing style is easy to follow, the narratives move quickly, are succinct, and just fun to read. The book essentially describes approximately 250 events or concepts and their associated misperception. Each entry is approximately two pages long. Thus, the reader can easily put down the book and pick it up much later with no loss in momentum.Most readers will likely know some of the historical events and fallacies in this book. That said, even the most scholarly of readers will likely still find things of which they were unaware. The author appears to have researched each topic.The book also has two small sections at the end. One lists some well-known quotes that were never actually said. The other one contains comments made by famous pundits which proved to be totally wrong.Bottom line: This is a fun little book. It’s an easy read from which everyone will learn something.

Well researched, but not interestingly written. It was promised to be humorous, but I missed that if it was present in most of the book. It seems to be very well researched, but then how can I know? It may all be lies and myths again. My suggestion is to skip to Part III - Pundits (the last few pages of the book). There is humor there, but it is in the irony of what experts have said and what reality offered, not the writing.

First of all, this is not a political book. You know the kind I mean—that discredits ideas of the Far Left or Far Right by linking them to incorrect interpretations of historical events. Neither is it a serious discussion of important misconceptions about the past. It’s just a somewhat whimsically assembled collection of mostly interesting “betcha didn’t know” facts. Just like the author says it is.The book’s first section contains 132 chapters, most of which explore a single misconception. There are a handful of “quickies” chapters with very brief treatments of issues apparently unworthy of their own chapter. Some of the chapter-level misconceptions I found most interesting:- The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibited the consumption of alcoholic beverages.- The captain of a ship is empowered to perform marriages on his or her ship while at sea.- Hostilities of World War I ended, for all parties, when the Treaty of Versailles was signed in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles on June 28, 1919.- Baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday in 1839 at Cooperstown, New York.- Gerald Ford is the only U.S. President who was not elected to the executive branch of the U.S. government.- Showman P. T. Barnum made the observation, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”The final two sections of the book—much briefer than Section 1—address misattributed quotations and outrageously incorrect remarks by famous people.Don’t mistake this for anything other than light reading. That understood, it is fun light reading. Each chapter stands alone, so it is appropriate to leave in a bathroom or doctor’s office waiting room. It’s probably less appropriate to leave in a historian’s mailbox or on the bed in a death row cell. You may disagree.In any case, a good read.

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.

Fast read, topics in easily digestible single page format with solid facts, written in simple language for all ages.

This book is a written version of the Myth users who take great delight in debunking activities I though we're true and valid. This book does the same. I sent a lot of time reading excerpts to my husband in disbelief. Read it!

Fun and interesting, full of lovely nuggets of information that will trigger many a debate. Very enjoyable and something I would recommend.

Ok but pretty trivial information. Not worth the price unless looking for a sourc,e of stuff for Trivial Pursuit.

It explains the truth about a lot of information we have accepted over the years. I think it would be great for everyone.