Monuments between covers - The politics of textbooks

History textbooks have represented state-approved civic truth. They reveal what adults thought children should learn about the past and are probably t he best index of what young Americans did learn in class. History texts hav e given the past a patriotic gloss, varnishing familiar icons and perpetuat ing familiar interpretations. Like monuments designed to commemorate and re -present emblematic figures and events, textbooks shaped the public culture . But over time, textbooks did change,for many groups insisted that their t ruths prevail. Conflicts often intensified in periods of stress-hot and col d wars, depression, and sharp demographic shifts-when loyalty police went o n alert and social activists recruited allies. The present history wars are a late chapter in a long book.