‘Revisionism' and the American textbook

August 27, 2006

VALLEY VOICES/William Siedler

Are our public school history texts &#8220revisionist?” The last couple of months I've been sharing with you concerns, claims and assertions made in a much forwarded e-mail - one that you may have received, just as I have.

I'd like to share one more claim made: &#8220Revisionists have rewritten history to remove the truth about our county's Christian roots.” The e-mail levels quite a charge against the history texts used in our public schools, Mat-Su District Schools included. Is there any validity to this charge of &#8220revisionism? If so, is revisionism inherently wrong?

I have long felt that the term &#8220revisionism” has gotten a bad rap over the years, and has taken on an unfortunate connotation. Since the world wars, the term &#8220propaganda” has come to connote the spread of lies and half-truths, instead of what it really means: informative material intended to help or harm a person, cause or nation.

So it is with &#8220revisionism,” I think. My Random House Dictionary describes the term thusly:

1. Advocacy or approval of revision.

2. Departure from any authoritative or generally accepted doctrine, theory or practice.

Since any historian - or history text writer - who dares practice revisionism can properly be called a &#8220revisionist,” Random House defines him or her as:

1. An advocate of revision, especially of political or religious doctrine, and

2. [One who is] attempting to re-evaluate and restate the past based on newly acquired standards.

From experience gained in history and archaeology, I can tell you that a researcher's enthusiasm in both these disciplines comes largely from the hope of &#8220unearthing” some previously unknown evidence or insight that will ultimately advance our understanding of history and the human condition. After all, what student of anthropology, chemistry, astrophysics (or significantly these days, medical research) enters into the advanced study of such disciplines with the intent to confirm what is already &#8220known” and accepted as truth?

Imagine a world in which Aristotle is still the cutting edge of science, as he was until nearly the end of medieval times? No need then for Newton, Pasteur, Darwin or Einstein - revisionists all.

Good news: the American history textbook has been in &#8220revision” since William Holmes McGuffey published his first reader. I hope the revisers stay with it, so that our textbooks don't ever become too stale or dogmatic.

Many conservatives have questioned whether today's public school history texts are suffering &#8220revisionism” toward political correctness, moral relativism, and multiculturalism at the expense of students' exposure to America's great (and exclusively white) men and their great deeds, made possible only by their faith. They may have a point: I too bemoan the march to sanitization and utter blandness that is apparent in many of our history texts.

How, as Oliver Wendell Holmes suggested, can concepts compete in the &#8220marketplace of ideas” if they can't get a proper airing? Is it all due to a dark, insidious, secular-socialist, university-trained cabal of revisionist text writers?

Perhaps the answer is as prosaic as this: cost and the limitations of space. Not only is the average American history textbook expensive to produce, it is ponderous in both content and bulk.

I've wondered whether textbook publishers don't have a &#822015 Pound Max” rule for each textbook leaving the bindery, to reduce legal exposure from lawsuits over children with premature bad posture, sciatica and bulging discs.

I'd wager that most history teachers believe that the only way students will ever get a thorough and proper grounding in American history requires two volumes of text over two years of study - three to four years for world history. But as long as the current rage for high-stakes testing is consumed with math, reading and writing skills, don't expect history - revisionist or otherwise - to get the emphasis it deserves.

William Seidler teaches history at Palmer High School. His Valley Voices column appears every four weeks.