Rainy Day Reads

This is a non-fiction book about the Americas before Columbus came along. There are a number of new insights in this book, at least new to me, and I found it all very fascinating. A few of the things I had heard about before, like the fact that even before the first European settlers arrived in North America disease had swept the continent and fundamentally changed Indian society. So the “original” way of life in North America that the settlers experienced was actually an adaptation to new circumstances.   Aside from this, the book covers a number of topics more or less thoroughly, including maize, disease, the Mayan calendar and the Five Nations. There are accounts of both North, South and Mesoamerica before and after contact with Europeans in here and that was my only complaint, and a minor one at that. The book did jump around a little in time and place and that made it feel a little disjointed. But with such a massive scope it is hardly possible to do otherwise....

I have a general interest in history so I thought this one sounded like fun. And it is! As the title says this book explores the lies taught in American high schools. It takes a number of high profile different topics like Columbus, racism, the government etc. and delves deeper into them, shoeing what is taught in schools and why that's not the truth. for instance Columbus is mostly revered as the discoverer of America and has his own day of celebration, but there are a lot of things he did during this "discovery" that are never taught in the schools. Like enslaving the local peoples he met, bringing plagues to the Americas and all round not being the great guy history sets him up to be. The book also looks at WHY these topics are taught like this, when for some of them at least we very well know that that is not the truth of what happened. I found this aspect really interesting too, because who controls history and why do they spin it the way they do? It's hard...