Carnegie Council

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History and the Politics of Reconciliation (2000-2005)

Introduction: Reconciliation and History Education
Elizabeth A. Cole, Asia Society, formerly Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

PART I. As Generations Pass: The Challenges of Long-Term Reconciliation in History Textbooks

1. The Trajectory of Reconciliation through History Education in Postunification Germany
Julian Dierkes, University of British Columbia
2. Advancing or Obstructing Reconciliation? Changes in History Education and Disputes over History Textbooks in Japan
Takashi Yoshida, Western Michigan University
3. Representations of Aboriginal People in English Canadian History Textbooks: Toward Reconciliation
Penney Clark, University of British Columbia

PART II. Reconciliation in Process

4. History Teaching and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland
Alison Kitson, Training and Development Agency for Schools, U.K.
5. The Spanish Civil War and the Franco Dictatorship: The Challenges of Representing a Conflictive Past in Secondary Schools
Rafael Valls, University of Valencia
6. Historical Memory and the Limits of Peace Education: Examining Guatemala's Memory of Silence and the Politics of Curriculum Design
Elizabeth Oglesby, University of Arizona

PART III. Reconciliation Jeopardized, Undone, or Not Yet Attained: Aspirational and Counter-Reconciliatory Cases

7. History and Myth in the Soviet Empire and the Russian Republic
Thomas Sherlock, United States Military Academy
8. On the Use and Abuse of Korea's Past: An Inquiry into History Teaching and Reconciliation
Roland Bleiker, University of Queensland & Hoang Young-Ju, Pusan University of Foreign Studies
9. The Role of History Textbooks in Shaping Collective Identities in India and Pakistan
Jon Dorschner, United States Department of State and Thomas Sherlock, United States Military Academy

Afterword
Audrey R. Chapman, University of Connecticut Health Center

Click here for an expanded table of contents for the book with individual chapter outlines and descriptions, or go back to the Welcome page.

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Advance Praise

"For anyone interested in transitional justice, national reconstruction after mass violence, or multicultural politics, Teaching the Violent Past is a source of insight and wisdom, grounded in compelling case studies of the struggles over teaching history in Germany, Japan, Canada, Spain, Northern Ireland, and Guatemala. It includes probing chapters examining ongoing debates over how Russia, North and South Korea, India and Pakistan should teach their young about the past so that neither national pride nor psychic wounds ends up fueling new violent conflicts. This book offers vital examples of efforts to engage students in critical confrontations with the complexity of the past."
—MARTHA MINOW
Harvard Law School

"Can high school history texts 'facilitate nonviolent coexistence among people divided by the memory of pain and death'? These case studies from ten countries are rich in hopeful, cautious, mixed answers. High school history teachers should take courage from this book, for theirs is a mission not often publicly celebrated: their part in the healing of the wounds in our body politic. No country should boast that it has no such wounds."
—DONALD W. SHRIVER, Jr.
President Emeritus, Union Theological Seminary

"Cole provides an indispensable set of readings for anyone interested in learning how teaching history in the schools relates to healing after violence. Through their gathered chapters, the authors show how any nation's future relates to what the next generation learns about its past. Cole's collection offers a powerful synthesis of multi-national points of view, which, taken together, show how schools can reshape collective national identities and influence reconciliation."
—SARAH WARSHAUER FREEDMAN
University of California at Berkeley