Monumental Lies

Monumental Lies
Author: Robert Bevan
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2022-10-11
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1839761903

How statues, heritage and the built environment have become the battleground for the culture wars The past is weaponised in culture wars and cynically edited by those who wish to impose their ideology upon the physical spaces around us. Holocaust deniers use details of the ruins of the gas chambers Auschwitz to promote their lies: ‘No Holes; No Holocaust’. Yet long-standing concepts such as ‘authenticity’in heritage are undermined and trivialised by gatekeepers such as UNESCO. At the same, time, opposition to this manipulation is being undermined by cultural ideas that prioritise memory and impressions over history and facts. In Monumental Lies, Robert Bevan argues that monuments, architecture and cities are material evidence of history. They are the physical trace of past events, of previous ways of thinking and of politics, economics and values that percolate through to today. When our cities are reshaped as fantasies about the past, when monuments tell lies about who deserves honour or are destroyed and the struggle for justice forgotten, the historical record is being manipulated. When decisions are based on misinformed assumptions about how the built environment influences our behaviour or we are told, falsely, that certain architectural styles are alien to our cities, or when space pretends to be public but is private, or that physical separation is natural, we are being manipulated. There is a growing threat to the material evidence of the truth about history. We are in serious trouble if we can no longer trust the tangible world around us to tell us the truth. Monumental Lies explores the threats to our understanding of the built environment and how it impacts on our lives, as well as offers solutions to how to combat the ideological manipulations.

Monumental Lies

Monumental Lies
Author: Robert Bevan
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2022-10-11
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1839761873

How statues, heritage and the built environment have become the battleground for the culture wars The past is weaponised in culture wars and cynically edited by those who wish to impose their ideology upon the physical spaces around us. Holocaust deniers use details of the ruins of the gas chambers Auschwitz to promote their lies: ‘No Holes; No Holocaust’. Yet long-standing concepts such as ‘authenticity’in heritage are undermined and trivialised by gatekeepers such as UNESCO. At the same, time, opposition to this manipulation is being undermined by cultural ideas that prioritise memory and impressions over history and facts. In Monumental Lies, Robert Bevan argues that monuments, architecture and cities are material evidence of history. They are the physical trace of past events, of previous ways of thinking and of politics, economics and values that percolate through to today. When our cities are reshaped as fantasies about the past, when monuments tell lies about who deserves honour or are destroyed and the struggle for justice forgotten, the historical record is being manipulated. When decisions are based on misinformed assumptions about how the built environment influences our behaviour or we are told, falsely, that certain architectural styles are alien to our cities, or when space pretends to be public but is private, or that physical separation is natural, we are being manipulated. There is a growing threat to the material evidence of the truth about history. We are in serious trouble if we can no longer trust the tangible world around us to tell us the truth. Monumental Lies explores the threats to our understanding of the built environment and how it impacts on our lives, as well as offers solutions to how to combat the ideological manipulations.

Monumental Lies

Monumental Lies
Author: Ronald M. James
Publisher: University of Nevada Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2023-09-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1647791170

A playful embrace of tall tales and exaggeration, Monumental Lies explores the evolution of folklore in the Wild West. Monumental Lies: Early Nevada Folklore of the Wild West invites readers to explore how legends and traditions emerged during the first decades following the “Rush to Washoe,” which transformed the Nevada Territory after in 1859. During this Wild West period, there was widespread celebration of deceit, manifesting in tall tales, burlesque lies, practical jokes, and journalistic hoaxes. Humor was central, and practitioners easily found themselves scorned if they failed to be adequately funny. The tens of thousands of people who came to the West, attracted by gold and silver mining, brought distinct cultural legacies. The interaction of diverse perspectives, even while new stories and traditions coalesced, was a complex process. Author Ronald M. James addresses how the fluidity of the region affected new expressions of folklore as they took root. The wildly popular Mark Twain is often a go-to source for collections of early tall tales of this region, but his interaction with local traditions was specific and narrow. More importantly, William Wright—publishing as Dan De Quille—arose as a key collector of legends, a counterpart of early European folklorists. With a bedrock understanding of what unfolded in the nineteenth century, James considers how these early stories helped shaped the culture of the Wild West.

Lies Across America

Lies Across America
Author: James W. Loewen
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 482
Release: 2019-09-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1620974932

A fully updated and revised edition of the book USA Today called "jim-dandy pop history," by the bestselling, American Book Award–winning author "The most definitive and expansive work on the Lost Cause and the movement to whitewash history." —Mitch Landrieu, former mayor of New Orleans From the author of the national bestseller Lies My Teacher Told Me, a completely updated—and more timely than ever—version of the myth-busting history book that focuses on the inaccuracies, myths, and lies on monuments, statues, national landmarks, and historical sites all across America. In Lies Across America, James W. Loewen continues his mission, begun in the award-winning Lies My Teacher Told Me, of overturning the myths and misinformation that too often pass for American history. This is a one-of-a-kind examination of historic sites all over the country where history is literally written on the landscape, including historical markers, monuments, historic houses, forts, and ships. New changes and updates include: • a town in Louisiana that was the site of a major but now-forgotten enslaved persons' uprising • a totally revised tour of the memory and intentional forgetting of slavery and the Civil War in Richmond, Virginia • the hideout of a gang in Delaware that made money by kidnapping free blacks and selling them into slavery Entertaining and enlightening, Lies Across America also has a serious role to play in contemporary debates about white supremacy and Confederate memorials.

Lies My Teacher Told Me

Lies My Teacher Told Me
Author: James W. Loewen
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 1595583262

Criticizes the way history is presented in current textbooks, and suggests a more accurate approach to teaching American history.

Lies

Lies
Author: Al Franken
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2004-07-27
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 1101219440

The #1 New York Times bestseller by Senator Al Franken, author of Giant of the Senate Al Franken, one of our “savviest satirists” (People), has been studying the rhetoric of the Right. He has listened to their cries of “slander,” “bias,” and even “treason.” He has examined the GOP's policies of squandering our surplus, ravaging the environment, and alienating the rest of the world. He’s even watched Fox News. A lot. And, in this fair and balanced report, Al bravely and candidly exposes them all for what they are: liars. Lying, lying liars. Al destroys the liberal media bias myth by doing what his targets seem incapable of: getting his facts straight. Using the Right’s own words against them, he takes on the pundits, the politicians, and the issues, in the most talked about book of the year. Timely, provocative, unfailingly honest, and always funny, Lies sticks it to the most right-wing administration in memory, and to the right-wing media hacks who do its bidding.

Monumental Myths of the Modern Medical Mafia and Mainstream Media and the Multitude of Lying Liars That Manufactured Them

Monumental Myths of the Modern Medical Mafia and Mainstream Media and the Multitude of Lying Liars That Manufactured Them
Author: Ty M. Bollinger
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013-11
Genre: Conspiracies
ISBN: 9780978806576

In the words of George Noory, "Monumental Myths, is a veritable buffet for so-called conspiracy theorists." So, put on your seatbelt and prepare to be thrust headlong into the world of "conspiracy reality." "In Monumental Myths, Ty Bollinger welcomes you into a scenic tour of some of the most outrageous events in our modern history - and he is an excellent tour guide. You'll move at a good pace, knocking back topic after topic with gusto. You won't be bogged down with the kind of tedious excess that is the death of most PBS-endorsed political guidebooks, but neither will you lose essential and enlightening detail. And Ty's good-humored, common-sense but well-reasoned approach will keep you involved (and smiling) throughout, wanting to see what big lie gets skewered next. The events are covered, major and minor, from JFK to GMO, Boston to Waco, aspartame to Oklahoma City, fluoride to Monsanto-land, MLK, chemtrails and beyond. The book functions as a kind of 'greatest hits, ' or sportsman's guide to a 'World Series of Conspiracy.' Ty brings that feeling to his work: the love of a good sports writer for a game. The game here is our history of national and international deception, played by the jackals who've manipulated their way into power. Most authors take on one issue to excess, burying us in useless and irrelevant data, without drawing our eye to the hundred similar (or identical) events on the horizon. But what we really want - and what Ty delivers - is a compendium, a means to compare and contrast the lies of history: how much better it is to have it all laid out in one, colorful, entertaining volume. And what's wrong with being entertaining? The bad guys don't know what to do when the truth-tellers crack wise and get funny - it throws them off their pitch. So much the better for the truth-seekers that we keep our sense of humor - and Ty certainly does. Even when the material goes into dark country, even when we're faced with acts of willful destruction so callous, brutal and monstrous you'd think we'd just lay down and give up, Ty marshals us on by shining a light on the things that make us human: our curiosity, wit and humor, compassion, integrity, critical thinking; and, thank goodness, the thing that governments and media ignore - our irreplaceable common sense." Liam Scheff, author of Official Stories. "Why did Monumental Myths need to be written? To fill the monumental gaps in the real history not taught to most Americans! And Ty Bollinger is just the man for the job, covering a comprehensive array of events from perspectives unapproved by any government agency, but guaranteed to cure your historical deficiency diseases. The time is right and the people are finally hungry enough to see through the empty calories fed to us by the mainstream media. What Ty has done with this book is to satisfy the most voracious of appetites for those who are the hungriest to know what has gone wrong over the last 100+ years right up until today. With great breadth, depth and humor, prepare to have your historical and contemporary chakras aligned to see through some of the most monumental myths that, up until this point, have misled generations of freedom-loving people into 'misinformational' bondage. I can't thank Ty enough for putting all of this information into one book!" Robert Scott Bell, Syndicated host of the "Robert Scott Bell Show."