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Censoring History: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany, and the United States. Edited by LAURA HEIN and MARK SELDEN. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. ix, 301 pp. $59.95 (cloth); $29.95 (paper).
Perhaps if history were not the "least-liked subject" among American high school students, as James Loewen notes, more young people would register to vote and thus ensure the ongoing history of our democracy. Loewen's chapter on the treatment (or not) of the Vietnam War in high school history classes and textbooks is one the ten outstanding and astute essays that comprise this profound and tightly integrated volume on the symbiotic relationship among democracy, history writing, and censorship.
The role of schools and textbooks, and by association, teachers and textbook authors, in presenting and reproducing official stories and interpretations about war, national identify, citizenship, social order, popular culture, and global politics constitutes the active framework of this book. An international panel of authors, who represent a rich mix of disciplines and professions, provide sobering analyses of pedagogical priorities and practices in Germany, Japan, and the United States with respect to the legacies of World War II and (for Americans) the Vietnam War.
The title of the volume, if catchy, is somewhat misleading: Neither the editors nor the authors assume that there is such a thing as a true and infallible history against which to contrast and compare various censored versions. Rather, the authors deftly explore the...