White Lies may be marketed as a children’s book, but it provides a very thorough examination of its core topic. I learned a lot through reading it, and I have a pretty strong understanding of America’s ugly past.

For example, as a white woman who grew up in the Midwest in the 1980s, I never realized that the “Mammy” stereotype didn’t even come from anything real. So, it was abhorrent and 100% wrong, but I used to think it was only abhorrent. This helps highlight just how insidious the ‘Lost Cause’ was and still is.

This book disgusted me several times, and it brought up yet again how much white ‘supremacy’ ruins everything. Much recommended, although you should expect to be outraged.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

Thank you Netgalley for the chance to review this book! I’m familiar with the content from my time getting my History Degree, but it was good to read more information, and get to review a book that is so eye opening for those who may not know much about the content. This book is accessible to middle grade, young adult, and adult readers and would make a wonderful addition to any history class that covers the era after the civil war. The content is easy to ingest and very thoughtful.

Ann Bausum’s White Lies is a fearless and essential corrective to the myths that have long distorted America’s understanding of the Civil War and its legacy. Geared toward teen readers but equally valuable for adults, this book strips away the comforting falsehoods of the “Lost Cause” and exposes the deliberate manipulation of history that still echoes through modern debates on race, education, and justice.

Bausum’s writing is unflinching and direct, offering readers a clear-eyed look at how Confederate sympathizers reshaped the narrative of the Civil War to portray their cause as noble and their defeat as unjust. This myth-making, Bausum argues, didn’t just rewrite the past—it helped build systemic racism into the very foundations of modern America. With topics ranging from the erasure of Black voices in textbooks to the backlash against teaching Critical Race Theory, White Lies demonstrates how historical distortions are not just academic—they are personal, political, and urgent.

This book sets the record straight. It is accessible to middle grades, young adult, and adult readers. The facts are cited and plentiful. There is always more to learn about the history of this country, especially given the current state of things. I highly recommend this one for classroom libraries. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

"White Lies" presents an historical insight to the ways in which Confederacy sympathizers lessened or outright propagandized the motives behind the Civil War, and how those falsehoods continue to reflect in our current society's view even to this day. Bausum takes on a weighty topic, one that is still controversial in many places, and presents a lot of evidence where Confederate leaders like Robert E. Lee or Alexander H. Stephens vocally say the war was fought over slavery. Then goes on to tackle how Daughters of the Confederacy and Confederate Veterans admit their goals is to present the South and enslavers as righteous or victims themselves.

As this is an uncorrected galley, I hope the majority of my criticisms will be fixed in printing. The biggest drawback being the way the information is divided. Twenty lies are presented, but some of them could honestly be seen as variations of the same thing, such as "#8: Whites are naturally superior to Blacks" and "#16 Whites are still superior to Blacks" feels redundant. I understand the aim was to differentiate between the racism of the time in the 1860s compared to the racism of the 1960s, but it could be stated in a better way. The same criticism can as "#6 The South's Defeat had been inevitable" as the main point and "#9 Lee's Loss at Gettysburg wasn't his fault" as a specific subsection of the former.

Another, yet smaller, contention I have is with the author's decision to remove the word "plantation" as a description for places where enslaved Blacks labored. Bausum contends that the word presents "a nostalgic euphemism for places of forced labor; its continued use helps to mask the horror of these worksites" but I feel that taking more effort in describing the conditions in which slaves were forced to endure in plantations would more than adequately disabuse readers of those notions. And there is a wealth of primary sources where plantation owners admit their need for slaves because Blacks were suited to such horrible conditions, which would both prove the point that slavery was in their best economic interest and they were aware these conditions were so unpalatable they tried eugenic rationalization to justify it. In a book that takes a critical eye at antebellum South propaganda, Finally, many Black criticism circles have reclaimed/adopted the term "plantation politics" to explain certain mechanisms of white slavery, so it would be in line with such discussions.

Likewise, the discussion of the statues is a wonderful through line of the book, but I hope it is formatted as panels on the side of the main text and with pictures of the statues would definitely increase readability. I also hope that the formatting would put the lies in the front end of the chapters, where many cases it felt like the theme of what the chapter was about was half of what the current lie was stating and half finishing up the previous thoughts of the earlier chapter. Again, this is something easily fixed with better editing for printing.

As for the positives, the book is very well researched. I particularly found the later parts about post-Civil War groups continuing "the Lost Cause" to be the most interesting. Adult books, such as Erik Larsson's "The Demon of Unrest" go more in depth about the mindset of contemporary voices in the Civil War, but the later ones during Reconstruction through the Civil Rights movement are underrepresented, especially in Young Adult non-fiction. If anything, I hoped that Basaum would use more specific language in detailing with Jim Crow laws, because she was very thorough in mentioning how Louisana's new voting law made 80,000 Whites ineligible to vote along with the intended 129,000 Black voters, but didn't go into the specifics of how the laws were applied. Oftentimes the strongest points were made when Basaum let the words of Lost Cause zealots speak, such as Mildred Lewis Rutherford, who was a true piece of work (I say in a derogatory manner). I also think finishing on Langston Hughes's "Let America Be America Again" was the perfect ending note to the book. Although the afterword with Basaum's personal interest in the topic was also worth reading.

Overall, this is a strong book that amply presents its case well. I hope the major issues of the formatting and ways that the ideas are presented are fixed when the book is published, otherwise I do think the current method in which I read it presented a great disservice to the thoughts contained inside.

White Lies was an eye opening book about the history that most of us weren’t taught. I would hope that this book reaches alot of people who need to learn the actual history of things.

Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for this ARC! I am constantly trying to find new ways of teaching about our history, and all of the stories involved. This book does a fantastic job of explaining the HOW of Southern culture--from the Civil War to today. The perspectives that it gives help students see what went on behind the scenes (and the history textbooks) to allow this celebration of losers to happen.

White Lies is an incredibly well-written book that makes history and research very accessible to the modern reader, while also not holding the reader's hand to make them more comfortable in the broken history that they (likely) have been taught or lead to believe about the War of Rebellion. As a southerner especially this book taught me a lot, especially as it presented and thoroughly dismantled each lost cause lie that the south built up after their thorough defeat. This book also serves to connect the lies of the not-so-distant past with the fight for civil rights in the 60s and the continued oppression of black people to this day in America, and ends on a call to action and a place of hope for the future.

This is a much needed real life history book that while written for young adults, should be read by all adults in the United States. I liked how Ann worked in sections about historical monuments dedicated to problematic historical figures. Will be adopting this for my classroom as well as sharing with fellow educators

This important work combines recent scholarship in an easily accessible format by addressing individual lies specifically. The inclusion of the recent updates to Confederate monuments, including who constructed them, at what cost, and where they are now, was a fascinating collection. This should be required reading for high school history classes, but I fear that it may languish in obscurity based on recent education "standards."

This is the perfect book for any history buff, or really, any American citizen. So many of the lies exposed within this book were lies I had learned and believed during my school years. So much of the way the U.S. is today can be explained and understood by the actions taken to keep the Lost Cause narrative at the forefront. This book makes me think of Lies My Teacher Told Me or Stamped, both of which also lay bare the lies we're taught and incorrectly believe about American history. Not only is this an informative stand-alone read, but I could also see excerpts being used in classrooms where American history is taught.

White Lies is what adolescent readers need: an exploration of the impact of the Civil War and all that follows from it. Bausum traces the story of the war and its aftermath of the "Lost Cause." It does a good job of explaining a complicated (and controversial) topic. I think a lot of histories aimed at young people steer away from it, thinking that the history behind the fallout from the war to be too much to handle. Bausum puts history in its place by exploring a series of "lies" about the Civil War and Reconstruction, and then continuing legacy.

I really appreciated the small vignettes throughout the book, looking at the memorials of various figures. I think it really made ideas concrete (no pun intended).

My only suggestion would be to have a larger section that explains some context to the civil war. While this a lot of attention given to slavery, I think the book would be well served by including some key points about the course of the war.

Even if students are not reading this, I think it gives an honest look at the time period, therefore great for anyone who wants a good readable overview of the events.

A fascinating inspection of the whitewashed Civil War history that many of us (*especially* in the South) are taught in school. How can one historical event seemingly have so many differences in the way it's remembered and taught? (Spoiler alert: white supremacy and racism.) How does this impact our greater view of our history and ourselves? So many important questions are discussed by Bausum in 'White Lies,' and it's a must-read for anyone wanting to delve into the harder truths of American history.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a welcome addition to the whitewashed history of the Civil War. As a person raised in the North and went to college in the South, I can say there is a vast difference in how the war is taught. Hopefully this book will be read by all.