[1] His father, David, was a medical director and physician from an immigrant Mennonite community; his mother, Winifred (Gore), was a librarian and teacher.

In 1963, as a junior, he spent a semester in Mississippi, an experience in a different culture that led him to question what he had been taught about United States history.

He was intrigued by learning about the unique place of nineteenth-century Chinese immigrants and their descendants in Mississippi culture, commonly thought of as biracial.

[5] Starting in 1997, he was a visiting professor of sociology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.[4] He was selected for honoris causa membership in Omicron Delta Kappa in 1997 at SUNY Plattsburgh.

"[1] Loewen spent two years at the Smithsonian Institution, where he studied and compared 12 American history textbooks then widely used throughout the United States.

Loewen points out in the book that many of the distortions found in American history texts are "not even by the authors whose names grace the cover.

[13] The book reflects Loewen's belief that history should not be taught as straightforward facts and dates to memorize, but rather as analysis of the context and root causes of events.

[17] A review in The Washington Post argued that even though Loewen dedicated an entire chapter to research methodology, his statements regarding the number of communities that supported racial exclusion policies were widely variable and vague.

"[18] In 2010, Loewen and Edward H. Sebesta co-wrote the book The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The Great Truth about the Lost Cause, an anthology containing a wide array of primary source documents pertaining to the Confederacy from the time of the American Civil War.

His official website invited the public to comment on what towns and historical sites should be included in terms of presenting history right.