Loewen is undertaking a valuable and necessary effort in cutting through a lot of the baloney that is peddled on many of the monuments one sees driving across the USA. Unfortunately, he undercuts himself through his tone and focus, which is more on criticizing than on telling us what we *should* know and commemorate.
I can't fault most of his conclusions about our 'historical' monuments, including the clear bias and tendency toward fantasy. In fact, he makes it so clear that, within the first fifty pages or so, we 'get it'. However, just in case we don't 'get it', he continues to carp about it for the next several hundred pages. It would have been possible to present the message without quite so much of what many call a 'do-gooder' tone. Such a tone detracts from the message, which is itself valid.
The other weakness in approach is in alternative proposals for monuments. When someone tells me that the existing situation is terribly flawed, I want to hear what we can do to improve it. It's not enough, in my view, to tell us we should have more commemoration of the roles of women and minorities; I want to hear some of those stories, and I want to see those contributions appreciated. Loewen could have done a real service by including, with every mention of a flawed marker, a proposal for a monument to someone forgotten by history. He might well have inspired a few to be built this way. Sadly, he only does this to any degree in a few cases.
Still worth reading, but could have been a proactive and influential classic that would have won some hearts and minds instead of a simple personal polemic against the acknowledged myopia of our existing view of history.
