Herb Reich claims that many facts that we learned while growing up were not factual at all. For example, he says that Washington was not our first President. He also tells us that "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" is not the official United States Postal Service motto. Imagine the shock to my English teaching soul when he explained that not one witch was burned at the stake in Salem.
Yes, Mr. Reich presents us with 250 interesting tidbits that we could have thrown in our teachers' faces during those tedious years in high school, when a good debate made the classroom so much more enjoyable. He definitely gives the reader food for thought as he painstakingly explains how each of these truths we have held for so long are far from true. My problem with the book is that while telling us to not be so gullible as to believe everything that is presented as fact, he presents us with a book of information that has no citations. How do we know that his facts are more credible than the original ones?
If you can get past that little issue, this is really a fun book to read. It really made me think, and I now have a stack of things to do further research on. Too bad I am not still in the classroom, where I could have assigned a different "non-fact" to each student and have had them research away.
- Beverly
Publisher - Skyhorse Publishing; 1 edition
Date of Publication - May 1, 2012