Of course they do. You can't expect every history book to contain information that is true. At least one person will bend past events a bit for personal gain, if not more.

Absolutely. If you've lived as long as I have and had the chance to read a high school history book, you would be stunned at the misinformation or out right lies.

nope

Yes and no. History is from one person or a group of people telling there view. ask 10 people who seen the same thing and you get different answers. And a history book is just an over view, they don't dig deep to find the small facts. Large facts = true, small ones = hear say or can't be fully trusted.

Not lies as much as exaggerations of facts and complete truths lost over time,and in essence-lies.Yes.THe form of lying in history was unusual because of tall tales instead of straight facts,and people wanting to paint the pretty picture of how they Wanted it to happen,not how it actually did happen.I hope this helps,Andy.:)*+++++*

Yes I do.. or half covered truths. Columbus DID find America, but he DIDN'T misname the native population. India wasn't even known as India then. He most likely said of the native population that they were people of God. In dios... Indian.. BAM, there you go. So it's actually a gooood thing. Well.. for Christians I guess.. even though the murderous assholes forced the rest of the decimated population into prayer towns and THEN into the west.. :/

Yes, I do.

Yes I do, history is written by the victorious.

Some do,,,in Japan they never tell what they really did in the war,,,same in Germany and Austria,,, but i read this to,,,,is it true !!,,,,But i do know all goverments lie about things,,to keep themself in power and to justify the things they do,,,,so keep an open mind on these things and don't believe every thing you read

Ummm...good question...don't think they are lies, but in some cases, bad information. +5

+5 Yes, not only lies but what they leave out. Children are not taught that it was the blacks who sold rival tribes to the whites durning slave days. No white could have entered the jungles and lived but they traded each other for beads, mirrors and other shiny things. History books leave out that most all the blacks in the South fought for the British durning the Rev. war and that if they had their way America would not be here. But this is not PC so it is not in most books. I am not racist, this is just what burns me about being PC. You can look these things up on the net. I am telling the truth. Here is cut and paste Some estimate that as many as three-fourths of the blacks in Georgia may have gone over to the British. One-third of the British soldiers garrisoned at Fort Cornwallis during the siege of Augusta were black, and a corps of fugitive slaves harassed people living on the Savannah River for several years. [1] (After the War was lost by the British, some whites and blacks who had supported them were settled in Canada.) here is source http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cescott/dabney.html

History books contain "truth", the ones interpreting the book have "bias"... ;)

A lot of the newer textbooks are watered down and leave out important facts. For example, you will never read this in school textbooks: "The Continental Congress in 1782, under the Presidency of John Hanson of Maryland, gave money to the mass printing and distribution of the Bible since America was unable to import the Bible during the Revolutionary War. The Bible was produced by Mr. Robert Aitken and is known as "The Bible of the Revolution" and was the first English Bible printed in America. In 1954, Congress added the words "under God" to The Pledge of Allegiance. On October 9, 2002, the House of Representatives confirmed the words "under God" by a vote of 401-5. The Senate had passed the bill, S.2690 by a vote of 99-0. Congress in this manner acted consistent with our nation's heritage, confirming that our nation is in fact "under God", as our monuments, songs, and money also testify" ~ http://www.eadshome.com/congress.htm Probably never see thses quotes: "We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus!" [April 18, 1775] John Adams and John Hancock "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." --October 11, 1798 ~ John Adams In Benjamin Franklin's 1749 plan of education for public schools in Pennsylvania, he insisted that schools teach "the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern." In 1787 when Franklin helped found Benjamin Franklin University, it was dedicated as "a nursery of religion and learning, built on Christ, the Cornerstone."

Along with omissions and loads of other bull. I believe it was Kissinger who said "History is the memory of the state."

Of course they do! History is only as accurate as the person that is writing it. The writer of the history book wouldn't make himself or the group he/she represents looks bad.

Oh, I think that's very well documented....:-D... http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/1595583262/

Not in the US, but probably theres some stuff they keep out. Other countries more common.

Most of history was written by people who were not there, not even close and well after the fact. people who were eyewitnesses are usually completely wrong as proven by forensic experts in criminology. So history is all BS. Most times you have to use logic and read between the lines to get the truth or an idea of what it was or might have been.

I would be surprised if some didn't.

Yes...I am certain they do! It is impossible to know even the tiniest thing about the study of history without knowing that they contain lies, mistakes, and also a whole lot of subjectivity. That is basically what history is - the telling of past events, on the basis of sometimes excellent, sometimes questionable, evidence - in an entirely subjective way. Often history books are made to give a particular view point, justify actions, or vindicate and blame... Winston Churchill's 'The World Crisis' is a prime example. His account of WW1 was a whole load of bollocks. Still, very valuable things. You can take a lot of value from those lies and bias in ways the author did not intend. History often tells us more about our society as it is now, and the kind of ideas the author has, than it does the society it speaks of.

I'm sure there are some, but I think more than lies they contain misinformation and bias. It may not be an outright lie, but different people have different perspectives on events that have passed.

Absolutely, history books are written by the winners, and the winners like to leave out little inconvenient atrocities they made have had to perform in order to win. It's the way the world has always worked.

Yes, history books do contain the winners version of events. Or looking at it another way some people and organisations who were on 'one side' during a conflict and then changed sides, have a habit of airbrushing themselves out of certain events. A point being that Irish Republicanism was started by Protestants, one of them being Theobald Wolfe Tone.

depends who is telling the history,for example USA won the second world war,so was nothing to do with the nazis attacking the soviet union then?

I dont think they are "lies", history is just someones perspective of what happened in the past. There are thousands of different perspectives out there that change history. Like, if you are to read about The American Civil War from the southern side, you will get a bit of of a different story than if you did from the northern side.

Yes they do, they talk about thanksgiving they left the part out how the indians were slaughther by the pilgrims after there feast, the white man wasn't the first to inslave, christopher columbus wasn't the first to discover american. I think they need to update and get news copies out there so the childern of today are not taught lies like we were.

History books don't exactly "lie", but they don't convey truthful events either. Back in ancient times, when powerful nations scoured the land and conquered other nations, some of their leaders found the best way to truly conquer is to eliminate any trace of the culture they took over. They would completely assimilate the cultures into their own and destroy anything that remained of their previous history. This especially applied for sworn enemy nations - the conquerer would wipe the conquered nation's culture and history off the face of the earth as a final stinging blow to their enemy. So there are probably thousands of past cultures that have existed out there that don't have any traces left in existence. There's no way we can ever discover them, so our history books will always inaccurately portray our past. On top of that, cultures have a habit of warping the truth to suit their needs and/or appearance. Japan doesn't teach their kids about Pearl Harbor. I lived there for 3 years and no one I spoke to knew anything about it. It wasn't mentioned in any WWII history museum I visited over there. The Japanese were ashamed that they not only attacked the US out of the blue, but that we retaliated with two devastating Atom bombs, so they leave that embarassing chapter out of their history books. That's a prime example of history being custom-tailored by a nation as a whole.

there is no absolute truth....

Winners get to write the history books. So most times the history books are one-sided and only tell the story from the ruling party's perspective... with many ommissions and justifications. To get the whole picture you have to listen to the other side's story as well. Sadly, this is often suppressed by the ruling party to the point where the stories are completely lost even to the people themselves.

many historical books contain lies and propaganda including religeous books, thats why there ar historians to study and find the whole truth

Well if you see my profile, you can tell that I work with books, and every written book has at least one interesting thought that you learn if you read it. Many history books contain 'lies' because one person's truth is a lie to the other person. But if you don't read it you can not tell if it is a truth or a lie, because we all have our own opinion at the end. That's why I love to sell or give books to people :)

Of course they do. They are full of lies, half truths and omissions, and they cut both ways. I didn't learn that the reason Maryland stayed in the Union during the Civil War was that after Baltimore rioted, the guns of Fort McHenry were turned around to face the city and the citizens warned they'd be fired upon if they showed any further support of the Confederacy until I visited the fort. I never had a history class that came closer to the present day than the Spanish American War, even in college. And there is so much important stuff in the twentieth century that kids aren't being taught, that they are being left unprepared for life. Kids don't know about the epidemics that wiped out large percentages of kids in every generation and left others crippled for life, but were only beaten back by vaccines and antibiotics. My grandmother lost two siblings, one to pneumonia, the other in childbirth and she lost her favorite aunt in the tuberculosis epidemic, so I'm well aware of it. I was taught to revere the names of Salk and Sabin, who put a stop to the terrible polio epidemics that killed and crippled so many children every year, but you rarely hear them mentioned anymore. Kids aren't taught about the causes and effects of the Great Depression or WWII. They aren't taught about the tremendous sacrifices people made during that war.

That depends. Being a Christian, I think evolution isn't real, but it's all over history books.

9-3-2017 You better believe it. Example: all children in public schools are told that WW2 pulled the country out of the depression. Even when I was a child I could see that was an incredibly dumb thing to say. Wars waste resources and kill people. People could not buy new cars or get tires and gas for the cars they had. The times were so bad that a lot of people had to plant gardens just to have enough food. Those are signs of poverty. The depression was a time of prosperity. The value of the money was increasing, people were giving more to charities, and consumption of meat and butter were rising. But history says the opposite. It turns out that history was written from the big banker's point of view.

The word lie may be a little strong. History books are about people that we never met and and events that we did not witness. Some authors are accurate, some are biased and some mean well but see truth through a paradigm. History is also tedious. You need to review multiple sources before an accurate picture begins to emerge.

Of course. Armstrong faked the moon landings and pyramids were built by aliens

I think history books are written by the victors. Plus each nation wants to be seen in the best light possible.

History books, for the most part, are just sources of propaganda - lies that contain just enough truth to make them sound believable.

Yes. There were multiple empires in Africa before the Whites showed up. I was told this never happened This is why people think Black are inferior to Whites.

Our culture promotes dissemination of accurate information. For example: our government doesn't have a Propaganda Department (by any name), nor are all of the news agencies state run. SO: our culture sort of URGES historians to relate history as accurately as possible. That doesn't mean that our history is always ACCURATE. There is misinformation (by intention in some cases, unintentionally in others), lacking information, etc. BUT...the (typical) historian's career is in danger is the historian delivers misinformation - intentionally or unintentionally, but ESPECIALLY intentionally. So: the historian attempts to deliver information as accurate as possible. ***It will not always be accurate*** for the reasons already mentioned, but there is a powerful motivation for the historian to present information that is as accurate as possible.

I suppose it depends on how accurate the information is and whether the historical figure or event is for real or not

They definitely do, I mean how can we expect everything to be true. It's not like we were there to witness it.

Some do especially the ones that deny the Holocaust ever happened.