Brain Washing in the High Schools, by E. Merrill Root

Brain Washing in the High Schools: An Examination of Eleven American History Textbooks, by E. Merrill Root. 1962 first printing softcover. 277 pages, very nice condition.

One third of the Americans taken prisoner in Korea succumbed to Communist brainwashing, according to U.S. Army studies, and assisted or collaborated with their captors. The Communist brainwashers recognized and took skillful advantage of the Americans’ ignorance and confusion concerning United States history, the free-enterprise economy, and the representative system of government. Placing the blame squarely on faulty presentation of history and social studies in the American schools, Professor Root, author of the controversial Collectivism on the Campus, examines eleven of the most widely used United States history textbooks. In these books he finds overwhelming evidence of hostility to traditional American principles, of left-wing partisanship and of class-warfare ideology.

Brainwashing in the High Schools quotes freely from the eleven textbooks to illustrate their “biased presentation” of American history from the time of the founding Fathers to the mid-twentieth century. The author makes a strong case and suggests radical changes in educational approach if we are to survive as a free nation. His book is essential reading for parents and for every teacher of history and social studies.

Professor Root presents the evidence in these pages, and upon it he bases the following conclusions:
1) That American students are indoctrinated with a Marxian concept of the United States History

2) That the present school generation is being conditioned to accept a socialistic and totalitarian way of life

3) That as a consequence, resistance to Communist cold-war techniques is being broken down.