Sometimes history books just plain make stuff up

There are three things to consider when reading a history book:

1. Is this true?
2. Is this representative?
3. How was this supposed to make me feel?

It sounds strange that blatantly false things might be in a history book, but sometimes "false facts" are too interesting to leave out.

For example, the official textbook for 7th graders in Texas is Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's Texas History (2016). [Source]

On page 90, when describing the importance of salt and spices to Europeans, it says salt was brought to Europe from Asia and Africa, and that "One pound of salt could cost as much as two pounds of gold!" But that's just plain stupid. "From a logical standpoint, the price of salt exceeding the price of gold (at ANY point in history) just doesn’t make sense." You can get salt from the ocean, which [surprise!] COMPLETELY SURROUNDS EUROPE, whereas gold required great effort to find, mine, and refine. [Source]

You may think this is not really a big deal -- that it's OK to use hyperbole if it keeps kids interested -- but I'm of the opinion that history books are supposed to teach facts, not made-up stories.

So as strange as it sounds, when reading a Texas grade school history book, you actually have to fact check it.