History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past - Hardcover

Nash, Gary

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679446877 ISBN 13: 9780679446873

Publisher: Knopf, 1997

Synopsis

A great national controversy over the setting of voluntary standards for the teaching of history in our elementary and high schools erupted in 1994, opening up a new front in the nation's culture wars. As the authors Gary B. Nash, Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross E. Dunn show, this phenomenon was not unfamiliar in the United States. Public debate over history has frequently occurred during the past two centuries, usually involving a clash of views, along the ideological spectrum, regarding the objectives of education in a democratic society. What, the authors ask, is the purpose of teaching history to children? Do we revise and reinterpret the past to tell previously ignored stories because they reflect present-day democratic values and speak to the issues of our own time? Or do we believe that the primary role of schools, textbooks, and museums is to preserve traditional versions of the past, to teach the basic facts, and to instill patriotism in our students? How has this country grappled with these questions and developed its standards in contrast to other nations?

As head of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1986 through 1992, Lynne Cheney funded the creation of national standards in various disciplines. History was assigned to an office  at the University of California, Los Angeles--designated the National Center for History in the Schools-- where Nash and his colleagues began to gather ideas and opinions from all sectors of the educational community.

After the standards were written and published in 1994, Cheney attacked them in the Wall Street Journal for being too politically correct, for not adequately recognizing some of the great figures of the past, and for giving too much attention to women and minority groups. Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, and other conservative  voices denounced the standards and their writers in a media war that continued for more than a year and culminated in action by the U.S. Senate. History on Trial tells the story of this rancorous debate, how changes in the standards were made, and how the resulting documents are now being widely used in our schools to further the accessibility and relevance of history.

About this title

Review

The authors of History On Trial never would have imagined that they'd get caught up in a highly partisan national controversy. In 1992 they were enlisted by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to draw up standards for the teaching of history in America's schools. And in 1994, before their work was even published, it came under blistering attack from the political right. In History on Trial the professors argue that their work was hideously distorted and turned into a shockingly nasty political issue by agitators such as Rush Limbaugh and Lynne Cheney (who had been director of the NEH when the project to create curriculum guidelines was begun). In presenting their story, Gary B. Nash, Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross E. Dunn may go into too much detail for a general reader, but that is perhaps a necessary byproduct of fully presenting their case.

From the Back Cover

Since the mid-1980s, Americans have been confronted with controversy and criticism surrounding our nation's history. This debate started by questioning traditional interpretations of the facts and by examining the ramifications of how these facts are presented to our children. Was Columbus an intrepid explorer, or the world's greatest genocidal murderer? Should the New York legislature stipulate that every schoolchild be familiar with the Irish potato famine? Was the Smithsonian's cancellation of the Enola Gay exhibit an act of patriotism or of censorship?

In History on Trial, authors Gary B. Nash, Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross E. Dunn examine the debate over National History Standards, chronicling a media war spearheaded by conservatives and culminating in a Senate resolution that set an ominous precedent: the manipulation of federal funds to promote an official interpretation of history. The book argues that contention over the past is as old as the past itself, that the democratizing of the history profession has led to more balanced presentation of American history, and that continuous re-examination of the past is the greatest service historians can render in a democracy. Wonderfully clear, timely, History on Trial provides a thoughtful account of the ways in which Americans have, since the beginning of the Republic, perceived and argued about our past.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0679446877
• ISBN 13: 9780679446873
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 318