The truth and nothing but the truth—Richard Shenkman sheds light on America's most believed legends. The story of Columbus discovering the world was round was invented by Washington Irving. The pilgrims never lived in log cabins. In Concord, Massachusetts, a third of all babies born in the twenty years before the Revolution were conceived out of wedlock. Washington may have never told a lie, but he loved to drink and dance, and he fell in love with his best friend's wife. Independence wasn't declared on July 4th. There's no evidence that anyone died in a frontier shootout at high noon. After World War II, the U.S. government concluded that Japan would have surrendered within months, even if we had not bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A gold-mine for bar bettors....Shenkman’s jam-packed grab-bag of topsy turvy Americana amuses and shocks.” - Kirkus Reviews “Facts go only skin-deep, but they can prickle memorably, which is why books like this, disabusing us of our cherished bunk, are useful and fun.” - New York Times Book Review “This entertaining look at the myths Americans live by debunks everything from the sanctity of the Founding Fathers to the notion that concern for defendants’ rights is a recent development. He goes on to a multitude of subjects, including sex, war, the frontier, education, art, pointing out along the way that prostitution flourished in the Victorian era, that the defenders of the Alamo did not all perish in the battle and that in the antebellum South not all whites backed slavery. The book is occasionally eye-opening and always fun.” - Publishers Weekly “Mr. Shenkman leaves no hero untouched, no American value unsullied.” - Wall Street Journal “A treasure trove....Shenkman shows the many ways myths have a rose-tinted past.” - Los Angeles Times The truth and nothing but the truth—Richard Shenkman sheds light on America's most believed legends. The story of Columbus discovering the world was round was invented by Washington Irving. The pilgrims never lived in log cabins. In Concord, Massachusetts, a third of all babies born in the twenty years before the Revolution were conceived out of wedlock. Washington may have never told a lie, but he loved to drink and dance, and he fell in love with his best friend's wife. Independence wasn't declared on July 4th. There's no evidence that anyone died in a frontier shootout at high noon. After World War II, the U.S. government concluded that Japan would have surrendered within months, even if we had not bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Richard Shenkman is an associate professor of history at George Mason University and the New York Times bestselling author of six history books, including Presidential Ambition ; Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of World History ; and Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter . The editor and founder of George Mason University's History News Network website, he can be seen regularly on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of American History By Shenkman, Richard Perennial Copyright © 2004 Richard Shenkman All right reserved. ISBN: 0060972610 Some Things You Should KnowBefore Reading This Book We Americans, I have discovered, do not just get our own history wrong. We get everybody else's wrong as well. Think Nero fiddled while Rome burned? Think Catherine the Great was Russian? Think King Arthur lived in a castle? (Think there really was a King Arthur?) Think Cleopatra was beautiful? Americans think these things are true, but they aren't. Take almost any famous event of world history, from the Trojan War to World War II. The version we learned in school or at the movies was often cockeyed or bogus. The plain fact is we have been flimflammed: We have been conned into believing that the pagan barbarians who overran the Roman Empire held civilization in contempt. We have swallowed the old line that English liberty can be traced to the signing of Magna Carta. And we have been duped into believing that the English endured the Blitz with a stiff upper lip. These are the facts: Most barbarian tribes converted to Christianity, intermarried with the Roman elite, and joined the imperial army to defend the empire from its enemies. Magna Carta gave new rights only to England's powerful barons. And during the Blitz the English complained and were bitter; and many turned to crime. Much of our history is topsy-turvy. Captain Bligh, a genuine hero, is made out to be a sadistic menace. Edward VIII, an open Nazi sympathizer, is remembered as the noble king who gave up his crown for the love of a woman. Hirohito, an ally of the Japanese militarists, is thought of as the shy marine biologist in glasses who hated war. It would be going too far to say that our heads are completely filled with lies. It is simply that in many cases history is written by the victors and is filtered through the prism of their prejudices. Take the Spanish Inquisition. Why is i