History Beyond Borders: International History Textbook Revision, 1919-2009

After World War I, peace and reform pedagogues pushed for textbook revision in the subject of history. In order to prevent violent conflicts, all forms of militarism and nationalism, as well as distorted depictions of neighboring peoples and foreign cultures, were to be banished. By the early 1920s the Scandinavian countries had developed a system that established the reciprocal analysis of history textbooks, including the commissioning of manuscripts. This system later served as the model for the League of Nations, UNESCO and the Council of Europe. Numerous regional and bilateral projects on textbook revision have been carried out under the auspices of UNESCO and the Council of Europe since 1945. Over the last decades, international reform efforts have reached beyond history textbooks and included the perspectives and practices of history instruction. The Project “History Beyond Borders” examines the history of international textbook revision, in which trans-national communication and transfer processes between various history and education cultures play a central role. Four sub-projects cover the organizational, educational policy, didactical and academic aspects of international history instruction and textbook revision. Two sub-projects explore the structure, concept, protagonists – in this case international organizations – and the effects of textbook revision in Scandinavia (University of Umeå) and in the rest of Europe (GEI), whereby regional and transnational connections are analyzed through network analysis. The third sub-project deals with the influence of international textbook revision on Sweden’s educational policy, textbooks and classroom instruction in the post-war period (University of Umeå/ Karlstad University/ University of Gävle). The importance of international textbook revision for the development of textbook research and history didactics as a scholarly discipline (University of Umeå/Karlstad University) lies at the center of the fourth sub-project.The project’s goal is to obtain new insight into the development of textbook revision in Scandinavia and Europe, the internationalization of educational cultures, the modification of history as a school subject in Sweden and the development of history didactics into an academic discipline in Sweden and Europe. The project will also contribute to the clarification of current and future controversies about history books.

Project Supervisor: Prof. Daniel Lindmark (University of Umeå/Sweden)

Project Partner:
Georg Eckert Institute
University of Umeå
Karlstad University/Sweden
University of Gävle/Sweden

Subproject II: Textbook Revision in Europe (GEI)

The second sub-project, for which the Georg Eckert Institute is responsible, examines the revision of history textbooks outside of Scandinavia since the 1920s and particularly takes into account the role of inter- and trans-national organizations. The concentration in doing so is on the League of Nations, UNESCO, the Council of Europe and selected transnational organizations such as the Comité International des Sciences Historiques (CISH). The study, which uses relevant historical research practices, in this case text and network analyses, is based on unpublished sources, predominantly from the UNESCO archives in Paris and the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. A large part of the project work is carried out at the Georg Eckert Institute in Braunschweig, which has extensive inventories of textbooks and technical literature at its disposal.

Project Supervisor: Prof. Eckhardt Fuchs

Project Research Fellow: Romain Faure

Time Period: 2008-2012

Methodology: Transnational History, Network Analysis

Publications:

Romain Faure, "Connections in the History of Texbook Revision 1947-1952", in:
Education Inquiry 2 (2011), pp. 17-31.

Romain Faure, “Schulbuchrevision als transnationales Handeln – ein Blick auf die Jahre zwischen 1945 und 1989“, in: Eckert. Das Bulletin 8, Winter 2010, S. 25-26.

Presentations: 

Romain Faure, “Was ist und wozu betreibt man Schulbuchrevision? Eine Debatte im Europa der 1950er Jahre“, Jahrestagung des Arbeitskreises Historische Friedensforschung, 6. November 2011

Romain Faure, “Shaping International Educational Action: The Emergence of a Transnational Field of History Textbook Revision”, Third European Congress on World and Global History, London, 14. April 2011

Romain Faure, "Towards a histoire croisée of History Textbook Revision in
Europe", Workshop Researching History Textbooks and International Textbook
Revision, Umea, 19. Mai 2010.

Romain Faure, "Die Geschichte eines transnationalen Forums - Die internationale
Schulbuchrevision in Europa nach 1945", Internationaler Doktorandenworkshop Ein
Europa der Experten, Köln, 26. Februar 2010.

Romain Faure/Eckhardt Fuchs, „Transnational Networks of History Textbook Revision“, Conference of the International Society for History Didactics, Braunschweig, September 15, 2009.

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