The End of Empire Colonial Heritage and the Politics of Memory in Britain

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Grindel
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
National Culture ◽  
National Curriculum ◽  
History Textbooks ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
School History ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Colonial Experience

Taking as its starting point the current debate over the significance of history in the National Curriculum for England, this article examines the place of the country's colonial past in its national culture of memory. In the context of debates about educational policy and the politics of memory concerning Britain's colonial heritage, the author focuses on the transmission and interpretation of this heritage via school history textbooks, which play a key role in the politics of memory. This medium offers insight into transformations of the country's colonial experience that have taken place since the end of the British Empire. School textbooks do not create and establish these transformations in isolation from other arenas of discourse about the culture of memory by reinventing the nation. Instead, they reflect, as part of the national culture of memory, the uncertainties and insecurities emerging from the end of empire and the decolonization of the British nation's historical narrative.

Problematic Portrayals and Contentious Content

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 20-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Foster ◽  
Adrian Burgess
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
National Curriculum ◽  
History Textbooks ◽  
National Report ◽  
School History ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Aged Eleven

This article reports on a study about the ways in which the Holocaust is portrayed in four school history textbooks in England. It offers detailed analysis and critical insights into the content of these textbooks, which are commonly used to support the teaching of this compulsory aspect of the history National Curriculum to pupils aged eleven to fourteen. The study draws on a recent national report based on the responses of more than 2,000 teachers and explicitly uses the education guidelines of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) as a benchmark against which to evaluate the textbook content. It identifies a number of potentially alarming findings of which two themes predominate: a common tendency for textbooks to present an “Auschwitz-centric,” “perpetrator narrative” and a widespread failure to sensitively present Jewish life and agency before, during, and after the war. Ultimately, the article calls for the improvement of textbook content, but equally recognizes the need for teachers to be knowledgeable, judicious, and critical when using textbooks in their classrooms.

The Challenge of Decolonization School History Textbooks as Media and Objects of the Postcolonial Politics of Memory in France since the 1960s

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Otto
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
History Textbooks ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial Legacy ◽  
School History ◽  
Fundamental Challenge ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Postcolonial Politics

This article analyzes how the fundamental challenge of decolonization has resonated in history textbooks published in France since the 1960s. It therefore contextualizes textbook knowledge within different areas of society and focuses on predominant discourses that influenced history textbooks' (post)colonial representations in the period examined. These discourses encompass the crisis of Western civilization, modernization, republican integration, and the postcolonial politics of memory. The author argues that history textbooks have thus become media, as well as objects of an emerging postcolonial politics of memory that involves intense conflicts over immigration and national identity and challenges France's (post)colonial legacy in general.

End of War or End of State? 1918 in the Public Memories of Post-Communist Croatia and Serbia

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Tea Sindbæk Andersen ◽  
Ismar Dedović
Keyword(s):  
Public Memory ◽  
Positive Outcome ◽  
First World War ◽  
History Textbooks ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
World War ◽  
War Memory ◽  
The Public ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

Abstract This article investigates the role of 1918, the end of the First World War, and the establishment of the Yugoslav state in public memories of post-communist Croatia and Serbia. Analysing history schoolbooks within the context of major works of history and public discussion, the authors trace the developments of public memory of the end of the war and 1918. Drawing on the concepts of public memory and historical narrative, the authors focus on the ways in which history textbooks create historical narratives and on the types of lessons from the past that can be extracted from these narratives. While Serbia and Croatia have rather different patterns of First World War memory, the authors argue that both states have abandoned the Yugoslav communist narrative and now publicly commemorate 1918 as a loss of national statehood. This is somehow paradoxical, since the establishment of the South Slav State in 1918 was supposedly an outcome of the Wilsonian principle of national self-determination. In Serbia, the story of loss is packed in a fatalistic narrative of heroism and victimhood, while in Croatia the story of loss is embedded in a tale of necessary evils, which nevertheless had a positive outcome in a sovereign Croatian state.

Narrative Strategies Regarding Japanese Ethnic Origins and Cultural Identities in Japanese Middle-School History Textbooks

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryôta Nishino
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
History Textbooks ◽  
Cultural Identities ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Long Period ◽  
School History ◽  
Middle School History ◽  
Japanese Identity ◽  
Ethnic Origins

This article examines how middle school history textbooks published between 1951 and 1995 explain the origins of the Japanese as an ethnic group (minzoku). The analysis shows that despite the relatively long period from which the sample of textbooks was taken, these texts continue to emphasize two categories of Japanese identity: a biologically heterogeneous people through prehistoric immigration and a unified language. Building on the latter theme, the textbooks continued to treat the innovation of the kana as a quintessential development underlying the Japanese cultural achievement. The analysis reveals that the narrative tone shifted from being emotive in the early 1950s texts to somewhat muted in later decades.

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