The Patchwork of World History in Texas High Schools: Unpacking Eurocentrism, Imperialism, and Nationalism in the Curriculum, 1920-2021 1032340649, 9781032340647

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“Stephen Jackson has produced our first comprehensive account of World History as it was actually presented to American students across the past century. He documents important changes but also troubling continuities, especially in the ways the course privileged the United States and Europe over the rest of the globe. Anyone who wants to understand how Americans imagined the world—and what that means for our own history—should read this smart and careful book.” —Jonathan Zimmerman, University of Pennsylvania, author of Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools “This highly original book traces the evolution of world history teaching in Texas schools over the last century. It shows how major features of the subject were redefined over time, but also— unfortunately—the characteristic limitations placed on the field thanks to a variety of political and cultural pressures. An important addition to the practical history of education in the discipline, and a good chance for world history teachers to consider their basic goals.” —Peter N. Stearns, George Mason University “Jackson reveals dilemmas long underlying high school world history. The post-1920 details of Texas World History curricula show the evolving ‘patchwork’ of approaches adopted by state officials and authors. From 1984, state adoption of texts enabled conservative legislators to reaffirm civics as capitalistic nationalism and Eurocentrism. As texts expanded, historians gained influence over nuances in terminology, but the courses did not gain in coherence. Jackson’s methodology is solid, revealing a hard reality that the moral instructions of the course, as enunciated by social leaders, have been systematically prioritized over historical knowledge and methods.” —Patrick Manning, Andrew Mellon Professor of World History, Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh and Past President, American Historical Association “Stephen Jackson’s singular book is an important contribution to the literature on teaching world history. This is high-quality, well-sourced, innovative work, clearly framed, offering penetrating insights. Until now we have not had a useful account of the evolution of world history courses. Jackson provides a fresh perspective and fills a significant gap—essential reading for teachers, scholars, policymakers, and anyone considering revisions to the curriculum.” —Ronald Evans, Professor, San Diego State University, author of The Social Studies Wars

“The first of its kind to explore the high school world history course, this book provides a fascinating analysis of 100 years of textbooks, standards, and curricula. Jackson grounds the Texas case in the larger context of the scholarly field, making the book an essential read for historians and world history educators alike.” —Lauren McArthur Harris, Arizona State University “Stephen Jackson has written an incredibly important book that is a must-read for anyone interested in history education. The first booklength treatment of the history of how World History has been taught in the United States, The Patchwork of World History in Texas High Schools offers insight into how we inherited a chaotic World History curriculum. From progressive origins to conservative challenges, with several revisions along the way that address issues such as Eurocentrism and imperialism, World History remains a course that almost everyone agrees should be taught in the nation’s public schools, but hardly anyone agrees on how it should be taught. Perhaps Jackson’s book will signal the beginning of a new era, in which a consensus is reached as we strive for a coherent and meaningful World History curriculum that will benefit all American schoolchildren.” —Andrew Hartman, Illinois State University, author of A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars “Jackson shows a phenomenal understanding of the development and implementation of World History courses in American schools since the early 20th century. He wrestles with the major debates connected with this field and gives a rarely seen, yet important, analysis of the historiography of World History courses. This book is a mustread for any current or future history teacher.” —Kyle Ward, Minnesota State University, Mankato, author of History in the Making “A rich and nuanced account of how the world and its histories have been presented in Texas’s high schools over the last century. It is just  such grounded work that we need if we—as scholar-teacher activists—are going to move from pronouncing to effective advocacy for an honest, responsible, and useable world history curriculum in US secondary education. Kudos and gratitude to Stephen Jackson!” —Dan Segal, Pitzker College “Jackson brings insight and clarity to the fraught process of creating world history guidelines. His century-long view places contemporary controversies in a less-heated and more-hopeful perspective. Indispensable for all who care deeply about the power of world history.” —David C. Fisher, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

The Patchwork of World History in Texas High Schools

This book traces the historical development of the World History course as it has been taught in high school classrooms in Texas, a populous and nationally influential state, over the last hundred years. Arguing that the course is a result of a patchwork of competing groups and ideas that have intersected over the past century, with each new framework patched over but never completely erased or replaced, the author crucially examines themes of imperialism, Eurocentrism, and nationalism in both textbooks and the curriculum more broadly. The first part of the book presents an overview of the World History course supported by numerical analysis of textbook content and public documents, while the second focuses on the depiction of non-Western peoples, and persistent narratives of Eurocentrism and nationalism. It ultimately offers that a more global, accurate, and balanced curriculum is possible, despite the tension between the ideas of professional world historians, who often de-center the nation-state in their quest for a truly global approach to the subject, and the historical core rationale of state-sponsored education in the United States: to produce loyal citizens. Offering a new, conceptual understanding of how colonial themes in World History curriculum have been dealt with in the past and are now engaged with in contemporary times, it provides essential context for scholars and educators with interests in the history of education, curriculum studies, and the teaching of World History in the United States. Stephen Jackson is Associate Professor of History at the University of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA.

Routledge Research in Decolonizing Education

The Routledge Research in Decolonizing Education series aims to enhance our understanding and facilitate ongoing debates, research and theory relating to decolonization, decolonizing education and the curriculum, and postcolonialism in education. The series is international in scope and is aimed at upper-level and post-graduate students, researchers, and research students, as well as academics and scholars. Books in the series include: The Languaging of Higher Education in the Global South De-Colonizing the Language of Scholarship and Pedagogy Edited by Sinfree Makoni, Cristine G. Severo, Ashraf Abdelhay, and Anna Kaiper-Marquez Decolonising African University Knowledges, Volume 1 Voices on Diversity and Plurality Edited by Amasa P. Ndofirepi, Felix Maringe, Simon Vurayai, and Gloria Erima Decolonising African University Knowledges, Volume 2 Challenging the Neoliberal Mantra Edited by Amasa P. Ndofirepi, Felix Maringe, Simon Vurayai, and Gloria Erima The Patchwork of World History in Texas High Schools Unpacking Eurocentrism, Imperialism, and Nationalism in the Curriculum, 1920–2021 Stephen Jackson For more information about the series, please visit www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Research-in-Decolonizing-Education/book-series/RRDE

The Patchwork of World History in Texas High Schools Unpacking Eurocentrism, Imperialism, and Nationalism in the Curriculum, 1920–2021 Stephen Jackson

First published 2023 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Stephen Jackson The right of Stephen Jackson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Jackson, Stephen J. author. Title: The patchwork of world history in Texas high schools : unpacking Eurocentrism, imperialism, and nationalism in the curriculum, 1920-2021 / Stephen Jackson. Description: New York : Routledge, 2022. | Series: Routledge research in decolonizing education | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022025511 (print) | LCCN 2022025512 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032340647 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032347738 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003323785 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: History--Study and teaching (Secondary)--Texas. | History--Textbooks--Texas--Evaluation. | Imperialism--Study and teaching (Secondary) | Nationalism--Texas. | Eurocentrism--Texas. Classification: LCC D16.3 .J335 2022 (print) | LCC D16.3 (ebook) | DDC 907.1/209764--dc23/eng/20220822 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022025511 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022025512 ISBN: 978-1-032-34064-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-34773-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-32378-5 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003323785 Typeset in Sabon by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)

I dedicate this book to my wife Laura, the very best pandemic partner, and to our daughter Tilly, who brings joy and hope to us both.

Contents

Acknowledgments x 1 Introduction: A Course Burdened with the Weight of the World

1

2 History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s

32

3 Standardizing the World, 1980–Present

61

4 Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains: Eurocentrism in Action

88

5 The Wake-Up Call of Empire

115

6 Modern Problems

144

Conclusion: Whither High School World History in Texas?

169

Appendix A: Texas World History Textbooks by Adoption Period 179 Appendix B: Officially Approved Curricula in Texas 185 Appendix C: Textbook Content by the Numbers 187 Index 201

Acknowledgments

It is not too much to say that the dramatic events of recent world history nearly upended this project. In March of 2020, I was conducting research and preparing to give a talk to the University of Texas at Austin’s Faculty Seminar on British Studies when I received word that the university was shutting down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I returned home, at that time to a suburb of Minneapolis, to cobble together all the resources I could remotely. But world events impacted the project yet again when in May of that year the murder of George Floyd just a few miles from where I lived caused widespread protests over racial injustice that spread like lightning on a global scale. I remember researching and writing while hunkered down avoiding both the continued pandemic and locally mandated curfews. I have been interested in the subject of world history since graduate school, but these experiences powerfully reinforced my sense of the significance of the subject. Like a century’s worth of educators in the United States before me, I am convinced of the need to offer a robust, balanced, and high-quality education in world history to every student. Turning this project into a reality was only possible because of the generosity of numerous people and institutions who gave their time, resources, and knowledge to facilitate the research for this book. The idea for the project traces back to research conducted at the Ninth International Seminar on Decolonization in 2014, sponsored by the National History Center. I’d like to thank Roger Louis, Dane Kennedy, and Philippa Levine for their helpful comments and direction. My fellow seminarian Daniel Immerwahr provided invaluable suggestions to improve that project and has offered helpful advice in the years since. This early research turned into an article with the History of Education Quarterly, and I’d like to thank Nancy Beadie and Joy Williamson-Lott for their helpful suggestions. That project convinced me of the need for a wider analysis of world history in American classrooms, and I’d like to thank Kyle Ward from Minnesota State University, Mankato, for providing guidance and ideas during the conceptual stages of this project. I am deeply indebted to my colleagues at the University of Sioux Falls who supported an extended sabbatical that enabled time for research

Acknowledgments  xi and writing. My thanks go especially to Vice President of Academic Affairs Joy Lind who wrote several letters of recommendation and generally championed the project. During my absence, Beth O’Toole, Brent Lerseth, Lindsey Peterson, and Anna Simonson graciously picked up the slack in the History Department. The research was made possible in part by a grant from the Spencer Foundation. The views expressed within this book are, of course, mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Spencer Foundation. The lion’s share of research took place at the University of Texas at Austin, with the support of the Institute of Historical Studies. A second thanks to Philippa Levine for her assistance in arranging this and for her friendship during my stay in Austin. Courtney Meador with the UT History Department was enormously helpful in arranging the logistics of my research fellowship. Janelle Hedstrom, who oversees the University of Texas at Austin’s K-12 Textbook and Curriculum Collection, was generous with her advice and had a number of good suggestions on where to find more resources. Librarians at the University of Sioux Falls, including Sandy Biewer, Laura Kroeker, and Annie Sternburg, went above and beyond with innumerable inter-library loan requests. Officials with the Texas Education Agency Public Information Request Office, Sherry Mansell in particular, were unfailingly professional and polite as they responded to my many requests. Several scholars, including Peter Stearns, Ross Dunn, Bob Bain, Stanley Burstein, Rob Townsend, and Michael Marino graciously answered research questions and provided helpful suggestions as the project moved from the research to the writing stage. Michael Marino also educated me on his methodology for textbook coding, which, with his permission, I modified and employed for this book (the results of which can be found in Appendix C). David Fisher, Dane Kennedy, Michael Marino, Thomas Carlson, and Kyle Ward read through chapter drafts, providing encouragement and insightful advice. My long-time friend and writing-group partner Richard Boles reviewed book proposals, offered encouragement, and proved an exceptional host as I made the long drive to Austin. Finally, I’d like to thank my friends and family that helped me get through these difficult last few years. During a very isolating time, the weekly virtual game nights with Rob, Jacquie, Max, James, Jon, and Mel provided a much-needed and highly supportive community. My close colleagues and members of the self-titled ‘Expanse Group,’ James, Brian, and Greg, provided a high degree of collegiality, community, and levity during some difficult times. I want to extend thanks to my high school teacher Mr. Collins, who was the first to formally teach me the subject of World History. Lastly, no thanks could ever be enough for Laura Jackson, whose adventurous spirit always makes life more exciting.

1 Introduction A Course Burdened with the Weight of the World

First emerging in the 1920s, World History has been the second-most important history course taught in American high schools since the 1930s, and one of the fastest-growing subjects in the nation since the 1980s.1 Indeed, historian Peter Stearns suggested in 2020 that “the rise of world history as a teaching topic over the past 30 years has been the most important single change in history fare for at least a century.”2 During that time, the growth of the subject has been nothing short of remarkable. The little-known story of high school level World History stretches all the way back to the post-World War I era. Educators in the 1920s like J. Montgomery Gambrill advocated for a new course that would offer American tenth graders “the story of humanity and the development of the World Community.”3 Teachers and scholars for the past century have shared this goal of showing the world to their students.4 Using the state of Texas as a case study, this book tells the story of the World History course in American secondary education, shining a light on how educators and policymakers have conceptualized the course over time, and how this translated into classroom materials. The Texas example reveals that the World History course today is the result of a patchwork of competing interpretive frameworks that have intersected over the past century. Each new framework of world history patches over but never completely erases or replaces previous ones. And in between patches, the course continued to evolve in response to global changes. Rather than the static course so often imagined in the cursory historical overviews of the course currently available, this book emphasizes that educators and policymakers dynamically shifted the content and focus of the World History course to meet what they perceived to be the most pressing needs of society. But though World History textbooks and curricula have evolved during the century-long existence of the course, there are nevertheless themes present since the very beginning. I argue that three of these themes are dominant and remain entrenched in the course today: nationalism, presentism, and Eurocentrism. Textbooks and curricula expressed these ever-present themes differently, and with shifting justifications, over time. DOI: 10.4324/9781003323785-1

2 Introduction Despite its longstanding status in the American high school curriculum, this is the first book-length treatment on the historical development of high school World History.5 A voluminous literature exists on world history as a field of study, and there are several teaching guides on the subject. These guides rarely explore the historical development of the course in detail.6 By comparison, the United States History course has received much more attention from scholars.7 Debates over American history are powerful, passionate, and can move well beyond scholarly circles to ignite national public controversies. World History, long in the shadow of American History, has never generated such intense public debate.8 The 2010 revision of the Texas state history standards, known as the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), illustrates this trend. The revisions drew national attention as the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) put a decidedly conservative spin on the state standards.9 The SBOE, and broader public discussion, focused their efforts almost entirely on the subject of American History.10 Though it attracted some scholarly attention, the status of the World History course was marginal at best in this debate, as it has been for much of its life in the American secondary curriculum.11 In part because of the greater attention paid to American History, our understanding of the World History course is insufficient. Much of the scholarly work on the subject presents statistical data on the state of World History enrollments at a particular point in time, information on teacher preparation, or analyses of a single generation of standards or textbooks.12 Professional world historians since the 1980s have occasionally presented the history of the course in sweeping historical overviews as a preface to teacher primers or manuals.13 The broad approach is understandable given the decentralized nature of education in the United States, with every state formulating their own approach to education. But there is little nuance in these histories, particularly for the time period 1920–1980 before the arrival of the World History Association. The standard interpretation of the World History course comes from a  pair of articles by Gilbert Allardyce written in 1982 and 1990.14 Allardyce’s narrative focused mainly on university course enrollment figures and on big ideas from leading professional historians. In both articles, Allardyce was much more interested in American universities than secondary schools, though he did trace in broad strokes the emergence of General History in the 19th century and the World History course from the 1920s to the early 1980s. He was especially concerned with the battle between Western Civilization (known generally as ‘Western Civ’) and World History courses as the standard surveys for history in American higher education. He confidently predicted the fall of the Western Civilization course, saying that “most historians have long concluded that the world has outgrown the old Western Civ ideas… Truly those who do not learn from the history of this wilted course are doomed to

Introduction  3 repeat it.”15 However, Allardyce underestimated the staying power of the Western Civilization course. According to Goddard College’s Eva-Maria Swiddler, the idea of Western Civilization is “thriving wildly” in the academy, where a consensus remains that it is a cornerstone of a well-rounded college education.16 Allardyce depicted secondary schools as passive actors that typically absorbed ideas coming from important historical thinkers at the university level. Following his lead, scholars have taken up the idea that World History as taught in secondary schools largely aped the university-level Western Civilization course, formed initially at Columbia in 1919.17 According to this narrative, the course remained a static and increasingly dated copy until the true heroes of his narrative arrived: world historians. Allardyce concluded that “the ship of world history was lost at sea. To the rescue came the World History Association. For this organization, saving world history was part of an even greater task in American education: saving the study of history itself.”18 Written for the first-ever issue of the Journal of World History, Allardyce created a heroic narrative in which professional world historians saved the day. Allardyce’s Whiggish narrative of the forward progress of world history may seem over the top, but it has been frequently used by world historians when describing the history of the field.19 However, his narrative works much better when applied to the university level than to secondary schools.20 He painted a picture of a top-down relationship between professional historians and high schools, but the reality is and has always been far more complex. American secondary educators and policymakers have of course been influenced by historical scholarship, but also by other disciplines in the social sciences, philosophies of education, the political priorities of elected officials, and their own unique institutional norms and practices. Allardyce characterized the World History course as largely static from the 1920s to the 1980s, but this assertion was based on little evidence. A closer look reveals that World History is the heir to the 19th century General History course, and frequently borrowed from the Western Civilization course, but was never a carbon copy of either. And Allardyce’s predictions about both the fall of Western Civ and the salvific arrival of professional world historians were overstated. Other scholarly studies of the World History course provide valuable snapshots about the state of the course at various points but are generally missing one very important feature of historical investigation: change over time.21 Take, for instance, the issue of Eurocentrism. Scholars have long since pointed out that the course is Eurocentric, but have said little about how the nature of Eurocentrism has changed over the past century.22 This gives the false impression that Eurocentrism is a static phenomenon, unchanging and timeless. In reality, textbooks assigned today often continue to be Eurocentric, but in very different and more covert

4 Introduction ways than their predecessors from the 1920s. Rather than the snapshot approach provided by most articles on World History, this book examines how the course has evolved slowly and steadily over time, punctuated with a few periods of rapid change. The rest of this introduction is divided into four sections. The first two highlight the widespread consensus that world history is vitally important content knowledge for secondary students to master, but an equally trenchant consensus that the course has been an abysmal failure. The third section explains why Texas is an ideal case study for this project, and details in broad strokes the various forces that have been most significant in shaping the course over time. Finally, the fourth section surveys the organization and major arguments in each chapter of this book.

Why Is World History Vitally Important? Educators and policymakers have long thought that American students need at least some exposure to non-American history content as part of a public-school education.23 There are two primary arguments used in support of this idea. The simplest and perhaps most important argument was as plain to educators after the First World War as it is today: the United States is not isolated, but globally engaged. Textbook author R.O. Hughes said in 1935 that Americans have “only recently realized how truly we belong to the same world of which other nations are members,” and that world history “may light the way into the future.”24 Content knowledge of the world was vital to understand the history of the United States, and to answer the pivotal questions of how society came to be the way that it is. Events in the 20th century including the World Wars, the Cold War, and the acceleration of globalization confirmed the importance of including non-American historical content in the curriculum. A second major argument in support of world history is that informed citizens need to know something about the world. This was one of the key claims of social studies educators in the early 20th century who were at the forefront of the World History movement. Though it did not specifically envision a one-year high school course, the core relationship between world history and citizenship was laid out in the highly influential 1916 report The Social Studies in Education. According to the report, the social studies had as their “conscious and constant purpose the cultivation of good citizenship,” and that international content knowledge would play a role in this.25 In its quest to reinforce citizenship, history education in American public schools has been and continues to be strongly nationalist.26 The Social Studies in Education firmly stood on the side of American nationalism, stating that “before there can be effective ‘internationalism’ there must be efficient and self-respecting nationalism.”27 In other words, international content knowledge would be selected and disseminated to students

Introduction  5 through an explicitly nationalist lens. A century later, a 2018 set of curriculum guidelines used for social studies in Texas similarly stressed the “importance of patriotism” as well as an appreciation of the “basic democratic values of our state and nation.”28 This accords well with a study by Rachel Hutchins, who argues that participants in the culture wars of the United States from both the left and the right are united by “a fundamental focus on the nation as the primary social and political unit that is in need of protection.”29 There is a tension between these two goals of the World History course. Pioneer of academic world history William McNeill called this the difference between the intellectual value of history, which prizes accuracy, and the civic value of history, which endeavors to pass down traditional values and virtues to the next generation.30 Academic historians today are much more willing to challenge the primacy of the nation-state. Douglas Northrop, for instance, argues that “world history at its heart denies the presumptively foundational character of the nation-state.”31 This is one reason why there is such a large gap between scholarship on world history and the high school course in World History most commonly taught in American high schools.

Too Big to Fail? Criticisms of the World History Course With the notable exception of the Advanced Placement World History (APWH) course, nobody likes secondary-level World History. The course, typically offered in the tenth grade, has attracted few champions but a legion of detractors. Critics emerged as early as the interwar period and have relentlessly attacked the course for failing to meet educational standards, for tenaciously Eurocentric content, and for not keeping up with the latest in historical scholarship. As early as the interwar period, educators criticized the course for being overstuffed and for relying on rote memorization of facts rather than embracing more progressive forms of child-centered education. Despite initially being an enthusiastic supporter of the World History course, North Carolina social studies educator A.K. King wrote in 1937 that the course was “so chaotic that it is beyond the assimilative powers of the average fifteen-year old pupil.”32 A 2006 report on the state of World History standards echoed this complaint, saying that the subject often felt like a “wasteland of disconnected concepts, names, and ideas.”33 It was simply too much for teachers and students to cover all of the expected material in one academic year. A key to success in teaching World History, therefore, is selecting the most important content for students. But whose history should be included? Far more challengingly, whose should be omitted? This is the central and enduring dilemma of the course. A World History course that fails to be properly selective will sink  under  the tremendous weight of the human past, so developing

6 Introduction well-thought-out organizing principles is critically important. To better understand this process, we must distinguish between two interrelated organizing activities. The first is developing an interpretive framework, which provides coherence to the course by identifying a general approach, major themes, or central principles that can guide content selection. Today, such a framework might organize content through an inquiry method, take a thematic approach, or perhaps use David Christian’s multi-disciplinary idea of ‘Big History.’34 The primary danger with any of these methods is that the history of humanity is enormous, messy, and uneven, so no one framework can adequately capture all of it without risking inappropriate over-simplification. Once the choice for an interpretive framework is made, the process of content selection can begin. This is where specific choices about what to include or not include are made. Throughout the history of the course, changes to content selection have been far more frequent than changes to interpretive frameworks, and this can result in confused, disjointed, or contradictory narratives. The next two chapters discuss how policymakers crafted statements designed to provide organization in the form of state-approved curricula.35 Human history is vast, and the World History course is now and has always been vulnerable to accusations that it is ‘leaving out’ something vital for students to know. Indeed, many studies have criticized what the course omits.36 Despite overwhelming agreement that the course is overstuffed, the ironic effect of these critiques has been to add more content over time rather than carefully selecting the most important information. When referring to state standards for the World History course, Walter Russel Mead calls this the problem of ‘kitchen-sinkism.’37 Following World War II, and especially in the 1960s, the World History course has also faced criticism for Eurocentrism, the privileging of Europe and North America (typically referred to as the West) at the expense of the rest of the world.38 Textbooks and curricula routinely relegated African, Asian, and Latin American peoples to the margins of the World History course. In an era characterized by the civil rights movement at home, and the end of European empires abroad, this approach came under withering fire from many sides. A movement for a more inclusive curriculum focused mainly on the American History course, but the ramifications were felt across the social studies curriculum in the late 1960s and 1970s, including in World History. Notably, though, professional historians took a back seat when it came to the World History course, since at that time there was no organized academic field of world history. Instead, anthropologists and educators took the lead here.39 Recent scholarship continues to identify and condemn Eurocentrism in the World History course.40 Publishers and educators attempted to meet the challenge of Euro­ centrism by becoming more inclusive and embracing multiculturalism.41 Textbooks were scrubbed of stereotypical and racist language, and

Introduction  7 numerous non-European groups were included in new World History materials.42 However, the overall interpretive framework of the course continued (and continues) to focus disproportionately on Europe, particularly in the time period from about 1500–1945.43 The partial exception to this is the Advanced Placement World History course, controlled by the College Board, which places explicit caps on the amount of content that can focus on Europe every semester.44 Conservative critics today argue that the pendulum has swung too far toward multiculturalism. Works published in the conservative Fordham Institute, for instance, suggest that multiculturalism demonizes Western history and ignores or valorizes even the problematic aspects of nonWestern cultures.45 Following the events of 9/11, some were appalled at the positive treatment of Islam in World History textbooks.46 Academic historians have had surprisingly little influence on the high school World History course. Astonishingly, none of the original national committees that recommended the creation of the course included professional historians.47 For several decades World History existed in American high schools but not as an organized field of historical study in American universities. Aside from an occasional publication or two, there was no such thing as academic world history.48 Beginning with the pioneering work of Marshall Hodgson, Leften Stavrianos, William McNeill, and others this began to change by the 1970s. Under the aegis of the American Historical Association, several scholars created the World History Association (WHA) in 1982.49 World historians have subsequently revolutionized the academic field of world history and argued that secondary schools should follow their lead. The WHA had a keen interest in history teaching both at the secondary and tertiary level, and strongly opposed the traditional form and format of the high school World History course. In fact, they largely concluded that the World History course was so focused on Europe that it was not world history at all.50 Like multicultural educators, academic historians opposed Eurocentrism, but they also opposed the approach of simply adding new material on the non-Western world. Peter Stearns derisively dismissed World History courses that were merely “Western civilization with a bit of hamburger helper.”51 Academic historians attempted to create a truly global past by focusing on themes and approaches that took all of humanity as their subject. So far, the evidence suggests that they are having a hard time making a dent in state-level World History courses across the United States. The most recent comprehensive national study indicates that the traditional format, known these days as either the ‘Western Civ Plus’ or ‘Western Heritage’ model, is offered in twenty-eight states, compared to a mere six that offer a global approach to World History.52 This is not necessarily a reflection of a liberal/conservative divide, either, as California and Texas, two of the most populous and influential states,

8 Introduction both use the Western Civ Plus model as the basis for their World History courses.53 Largely shut out or marginalized by state-standards committees, and constrained by innovation-resistant textbook publishers, the World History Association nevertheless placed their mark on American education when several members partnered with the College Board to form the Advanced Placement World History course (APWH).54 APWH is widely praised by scholars and educators alike, and has been remarkably successful since its debut in 2002.55 Critically, the APWH places a cap on the amount of course material covering European history (initially set at no more than 30%).56 It receives praise not just for the global perspective that it adopts, but for a more innovative and engaging teaching style that embraces primary-source analysis and the development of critical thinking skills in students.57 Some conservative commentators have praised the APWH course for its rigorous curriculum and the fact that it can earn high school students college credit.58 Since it is run by a private company and operates at a national level, it is not subject to state control in the same manner as the traditional curriculum. This means that in many states the APWH course, with a much more fully realized global perspective, is taught side by side with more traditional courses utilizing a Western heritage approach. Today, the course is now referred to as World History: Modern, after a controversial decision by the College Board in 2018 to reduce the chronology of the course to cover a period of the most recent 800 years rather than the entire human past. Initially, the College Board set 1500 C.E.Present as the standard, but this decision led to numerous criticisms, especially from teachers who believed that the change fortified Eurocentrism within the course. The College Board ultimately moved the chronology to begin at the year 1200 C.E. to partially address these concerns. 59 While the growth of the Advanced Placement World History course has been remarkable over the past two decades, this success story should be critically interrogated. First, while scholars have largely praised the high-quality content of APWH, the pages of various academic world history outlets have rarely questioned the inherent issues of equity involved in high-stakes testing that is the core business model of the Advanced Placement system.60 Despite a push to offer AP courses in disadvantaged school systems, significant racial disparities in testing outcomes remain worrisomely persistent. According to statistics compiled by the College Board, the mean score for Black students taking the World History exam in 2019 was 2.13 compared to a mean score of 3 for white students. In Texas, those numbers stood at 2 and 2.88, respectively.61 There is also research suggesting that students who take the course but do not receive a passing score on the exam, may earn little to no benefit from taking such an advanced course at the high school level.62 To date, academic

Introduction  9 historians and the members of the World History Association have thrown their support behind the AP program and only rarely, if ever, questioned the wisdom of embracing a program that may produce systemically inequitable outcomes.63 There is also the issue of proportionality. A simple look at the numbers will indicate that, despite its success, the APWH reaches far fewer students than the more traditional curriculum. The state of Texas, one of the largest by population in the United States and the case study for this book, accounted for an exceptionally high 20% of national APWH exams taken (62,767) in the academic year 2018–2019.64 This indicates the explosive growth of APWH, which for the first time in 2019 had a higher enrollment in Texas than the Advanced Placement United States History course (APUSH).65 However, despite this impressive total, the number of students in the state of Texas taking the traditional World History course was more than four times greater (293,393) than the number of students enrolled in APWH that year.66 Perhaps even more revealing, the number of students in 2018–2019 taking the traditional course in Texas was nearly 95% as large as the number of students who took the APWH exam in the entire country.67 So while the Advanced Placement World History course is certainly a success story over the past two decades, the traditional model remains the norm. For these reasons, this book focuses on the traditional version of the World History course. The durability of the World History course in the face of widespread accusations that it has been a failure seems strange. What explains its continued presence in the American curriculum even when most commentators bemoan the low quality of the course? Part of the answer goes back to the fact that everyone largely agrees that the subject is necessary. Doing away with World History altogether is, therefore, hardly an acceptable option. Secondly, no new paradigm has achieved a critical mass of acceptance that would lead to widespread change. Though professional world historians today tout their vision for the course as the best solution, they have yet to convince a wider audience that would include not just like-minded academics and teachers, but state-level politicians, school administrators, and the broader public.

Framing the Evolution of World History with the Texas Case Study The Patchwork of World History in Texas High Schools illuminates the complex and shifting fortunes of the secondary-level World History course through an in-depth analysis of the state of Texas.68 The book examines every curriculum and the vast majority of textbooks approved by the state from 1920 to 2020.69 Educators have never successfully achieved the lofty goals of the World History course, but they have nevertheless influenced what generations of American high school students have learned about the world.

10 Introduction Texas is an ideal state for this type of analysis for several reasons. First, Texas was an early adopter of the World History course at the state level. World History gained official approval as a course option as early as 1925, and became the accepted standard for the tenth grade in the state by the 1930s.70 The course has been a staple of Texas high school education ever since, allowing this study to trace the development of the course from the early days of its existence in American secondary education to the present. Secondly, Texas serves as a useful case study because the state has been something of a bellwether for educational trends over the past century. Today Texas is known for a strongly conservative and Republican approach to education, but that has not always been the case. Like many states in the American South, Texas voted reliably for the Democratic Party until the 1960s.71 In the formative decades of World History, the education system of Texas touted progressive educational values. The child-centered approach pioneered by John Dewey has been one of the most influential educational philosophies of the past century, and numerous Texas educators embraced it.72 Focusing on Texas also reveals the close relationship between history education and nationalism in the United States.73 From the New Deal South, to the McCarthy Era, to the campaigns of notable textbook activists Mel and Norma Gabler, to the creation of standards in the 1980s, to battles over standards in the 1990s and 2010s, to the anti-CRT movement of the early 2020s, Texan lawmakers and educators have consciously, and in many cases very openly, fought over history as a battleground for the national identity. World History has often been caught in the crossfire of Texas culture wars. In the 1960s and 1970s, Texas began to embrace a more conservative approach to education, and over the past 40 years Texas-style conservatism has been highly influential in shaping American education. During that time Texas policymakers embraced standardized testing, mandated curricular standards, and the strengthening of state-control over education, mirroring or anticipating national trends along the same lines.74 Conservative beliefs have also animated content decisions. Battles over history are routine at State Board of Education (SBOE) meetings, particularly those regarding standards revisions or textbook adoptions.75 At the very least, this means that Texas is an influential example of a conservative American state. But given the strong influence of conservative policy on American education since the 1980s, Texas should also be seen as a key contributor to the national educational landscape. Lastly, and perhaps most significantly, Texas powerfully shapes the American textbook market due to its population size and its state textbook policies. Texas and California are the two largest states by population, with Texas having well over five million students in the 2016–2017 academic year.76 Since 1919, Texas has adopted textbooks at the state

Introduction  11 level. This law originally applied just to primary grades but was extended to secondary textbooks in 1930.77 This sets Texas apart from California, which regulates statewide adoption only through the middle school grades. The laws and forms of textbook adoption in Texas have evolved over time, but as a general rule, the state approves between three and five textbooks per subject, and for a period of six years, though adoption periods have often been extended.78 Textbook publishers are motivated by selling to the largest markets, meaning that the largest state adopters have an outsized influence on the national textbook market.79 Having your book approved by Texas meant a very large and stable market for years. There is some evidence that new publication technologies and the introduction of electronic instructional materials over the past few decades have increased the ability of publishers to tailor textbooks more carefully to state or local standards, thus reducing Texas’ pull on the national textbook marketplace. Some publishers, for instance, produce generic content and supplement it with Texas-specific sidebars, allowing textbooks to be used for other states.80 In 2011, after the storm of public controversy related to the revision of the state curriculum standards, Texas amended the law to allow local districts to select their own textbooks so long as they adhered to state standards.81 Though this is a major reversal of longstanding Texas policy, the initial evidence suggests that most school districts continue to utilize books from the official state list of approved textbooks.82 And even if the influence of state adopters like Texas is diminishing somewhat, it remains the case that Texas had a decisive effect on the national landscape for instructional materials throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. Texas’ influential position on the national textbook market is especially important for World History. Teachers obviously play a critical role in disseminating textbook information to students, and students are just as clearly not passive receptacles for textbook information.83 Nevertheless, research into textbooks shows how central they are to history and social studies education in the United States.84 In fact, textbooks may be more critical in a World History class than other historical subject areas since the available evidence suggests that most teacher education programs across the country do not include training in world history.85 Over the past century, four principal movements have forged the patchwork of the World History course in Texas. The first of these was the progressive educational movement which led to the creation of the course. The original World History authors patched together courses in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern History into a single course that, they believed, would present a unified view of humanity, highlighting especially the historical origins of contemporary social and political problems. Secondly, during the 1960s a multicultural movement emerged that attempted to patch over the rampant Eurocentrism of the World History course. This movement led to the removal of offensive language, and the

12 Introduction inclusion of previously marginalized peoples into World History course content. Interpretive frameworks, however, remained largely unaltered, and continued to cover Western history far more extensively than the rest of the world. The third patch was a powerful conservative reactionary movement that has been dominant since the 1980s. Advocates of this movement were appalled at what they perceived to be the upheaval of the 1960s and wanted to create uniform standards across the curriculum.86 This movement has marginalized the work of professional historians, especially since the controversy over the National History Standards in the 1990s. The standards movement has been enormously successful, with states across the United States adopting curricular standards since the 1980s. In Texas, the movement to create standards routinely leads to fierce battles over curricular content. Finally, professional world historians have been attempting to patch a more global approach to the World History course since the 1980s. Many textbook authors are aware of the new scholarship and have haltingly adopted some of the language and content of academic world history.87 However, the appeal of the new world history scholarship seems isolated to professional historians and some teachers. There are important signs of change, and the Advanced Placement World History course could over the long run make a wider and deeper impact. To date, however, the professional historical approach has had limited success with policymakers and the wider public. In the midst of these struggles, three central themes emerged: nationalism, Eurocentrism, and presentism. Each of these themes has the potential to seriously distort the central narrative of a World History course. Since at least the progressive era, educators and policymakers made the case that nationalism and citizenship training were key goals of history education in the United States. World History narratives emphasized the rise of democracy, uncritically praised capitalism, and presented an exceptionalist narrative of United States history. Professional world historians generally critique overtly nationalist narratives within history materials, but we must keep in mind that publicly funded education exists, in part, to support and justify the nation.88 Secondly, the World History course has long been affiliated with Eurocentrism. The surest sign of the continued presence of Eurocentrism is the far larger amount of course content dedicated to the history of Europe than to other regions of the world, which has been a feature of the course since the very beginning. However, the language and narrative tone of World History textbooks has changed significantly. Overt statements asserting European superiority are no longer acceptable. Indeed, one major change to World History textbooks is that nonEuropean peoples today are praised for their important cultural and

Introduction  13 technological contributions, their splendid civilizations, and for their unique cultures. Eurocentrism persists, however, in covert assumptions about the nature of modernity. Though rarely stated outright, the meaning of modern in most textbooks continues to be synonymous with Western. Historical figures who have not embraced Western values of democracy, capitalism, and tolerance are often portrayed negatively, while ‘modernizers’ receive praise. Narratives of decline reminiscent of Orientalism continue to permeate historical coverage of non-Western peoples. The third underlying theme of the World History course is presentism. Like nationalism, this was an intentional feature of the course from its inception. Social studies educators of the interwar period wanted a World History course that would help students understand the origins of contemporary problems. Historical narratives can be distorted through often unstated assumptions about what will be most useful to students.89 But of the three longstanding ‘isms’ mentioned here, presentism has received the least criticism, and many educators today would defend the use of history to better serve the present. Historian David Armitage recently argued that some forms of presentism are inherently defensible. For Armitage, a focus on “human flourishing- the individual’s maximization of her human capabilities, and our collective endeavor to realize the best for humanity as a whole,” is a worthy goal for historians since it is “present-centered, future-oriented, and past dependent.”90

Organization When organizing this book, I experienced the dilemma of every academic and teacher of world history: How do you appropriately narrow such an enormous and unwieldy subject matter into a manageable analysis? Solving this dilemma required difficult decisions and painful omissions. The next two chapters closely examine curricula issued by the state of Texas from the 1920s to the present, offering a panoramic view of the evolution of interpretive frameworks in the World History course. Then, in Chapters 4 through 6, the book turns to a historical analysis of textbook content. It is of course not possible to cover every imaginable topic explored in World History texts, so I limited the textbook analysis to the last 500 years, emphasizing the 19th and 20th centuries especially.91 I  made this choice because the course has historically stressed modern history at the expense of earlier time periods. Chapter 2 explores the origins of the course through the late 1970s, a period during which world history was not an academic discipline. Contrary to what most existing narratives of World History suggest, I  argue that the course was not a static and unchanging copy of the college-level Western Civilization course. Textbooks and curricula from

14 Introduction Texas demonstrate that educators used multiple interpretive frameworks to teach the course, and that textbook content responded to external world events. The Western Civilization approach reached a crescendo with the 1949 curriculum, but was quickly questioned by textbook authors and subsequent curricula.92 During the 1960s and 1970s curricular and textbook adoption decisions underwent a period of turbulence and change, and there was a clear awareness of the need to bring more of the world into the World History course. Chapter 3 continues the story beginning with the advent of the standards movement in the 1980s. In response to a powerful conservative critique of education, Texas, like many states, embraced a uniform and mandatory set of standards across the curriculum. The State Board of Education (SBOE), an elected body whose members needed no qualifications in education, gained the legal authority to impose a singular vision for World History that powerfully shaped the subject. This consolidation of power to state authorities has had significant ramifications. When it comes to World History, the main effect has been to insulate the course from developments within the historical profession. The World History Association formed at the very moment that nonspecialists, many of whom were committed to a Eurocentric version of history, achieved more power over the curriculum than ever before. There are signs recently that the traditional World History course may be slowly and unevenly moving toward a more global approach advocated by professional historians, at least in terms of content selection, but Eurocentric interpretive frameworks remain the norm. Chapter 4 investigates narratives of decline and ascent that distort World History portrayals of non-Western peoples. The chapter begins with an exploration of terminology commonly used to describe the non-Western world. The earliest texts used terms such as primitive or backward, and called for such societies to ‘Europeanize.’ More recent texts instead use the term traditional to describe the non-Western world, calling for programs of development or modernization, which largely fulfill the same narrative function. The rest of the chapter examines the specific case studies of the Ottoman Empire and Meiji Japan to illuminate narrative techniques that perpetuate stereotypes of the non-Western World. Narratives of decline and ascent are powered by hidden assumptions that measure non-Western societies against the West, presumed to be the ‘norm’ in world history. Chapter 5 delves into the subject of modern imperialism. Embedded within most curricula and textbooks adopted in Texas for the past hundred years has been an assumption that Europe is the central historical actor in World History. In practice, this has meant that imperialism plays a key role in textbook narratives. I argue that textbooks frequently depict imperialism as a ‘wake-up’ call to the rest of the world, initiating a process by which non-Western peoples encountered, and were transformed

Introduction  15 by, Western culture and society. Textbooks criticized certain elements of imperialism without undermining this central premise. Chapter 5 also examines textbook descriptions of imperialism carried out by the United States. Despite a widespread scholarly assumption that Americans avoid using the label, the vast majority of textbooks explicitly describe U.S. actions in the late 19th century as imperialism. I argue that this close association of the United States with imperialism is limited in scope, and is possible within textbooks because it does not undermine the concept of American exceptionalism. In fact, just the opposite. Many World History textbooks heaped praise on the humanitarian nature of U.S. imperialism or claimed that imperialism signaled the rise of the United States to a place of global prominence. Chapter 6 explores the evolution of textbook depictions of the modern world, particularly through the lens of democracy and capitalism. The vast majority of World History textbooks contain at least one full chapter offering students a snapshot of the contemporary world. Beginning in the 1920s, World History textbook authors have oscillated between guarded optimism and anxiety in their depictions of the global fate of democracy. Democracy was always under threat, most notably from international communism, and World History textbooks used ever-shifting anxieties to promote a global role for the United States. As a conclusion to a World History text, these ‘modern problems’ chapters served to further instill a sense of nationalism, as students were initiated into the mission of U.S. global leadership in the 20th and 21st centuries. Altogether, the chapters in this book illuminate the complex evolution of the World History course in Texas secondary education. Though there are key continuities and concerns that have always been associated with the course, there has equally been a dynamic ability to respond to the latest preoccupations of educators, policymakers, and scholars. These changes have never pleased a seemingly endless list of World History critics, but they have nevertheless profoundly shaped the American high school curriculum for generations.

Notes 1 Throughout I will capitalize World History when referring to a specific subject in secondary schools, but not when referring to the broader study of the history of the globe. Course enrollments grew by more than 125% in the 30-year period from 1975 to 2005. The overall percentage of U.S. high schoolers who took world history rose from 60% in 1990 to 77% in 2005. Sean Cavanaugh, “World History and Geography Gain Traction in Class: Seeds of Internationally Themed Lessons Were Planted in the 1980s,” Education Week 26, no. 28 (2007): 10. 2 Peter Stearns, “Foreword: Interesting Times Have Interesting Pasts,” in The Palgrave Handbook of History and Social Studies, eds. Christopher Berg and Theodore Christou (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), vi.

16 Introduction 3 J. Montgomery Gambrill, “The New World History,” The Historical Outlook 18, no. 6 (1927): 265. 4 For an overview of the academic study of world history, see Jerry Bentley, ed., The Oxford Handbook of World History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Patrick Manning, Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Douglas Northrop, ed., A Companion to World History (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley, 2012). 5 World History is often tangentially referenced in broader narratives focusing on the teaching of American history. See, for example, Ronald Evans, The Social Studies Wars: What Should We Teach the Children? (New York: Teachers College Press, 2004); Fritz Fischer, The Memory Hole: The U.S. History Curriculum Under Siege (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2014); Jonathan Zimmerman, Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002). 6 See, for instance, Antoinette Burton, A Primer for Teaching World History: Ten Design Principles (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012); William Gaudelli, World Class: Teaching and Learning in Global Times (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Associates, 2003); Manning, Navigating World History; Heidi Roupp, Teaching World History: A Resource Book (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1997). See also unpublished works such as Lauren McArthur Harris, “Building Coherence in World History: A Study of Instructional Tools and Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge” (PhD Dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2008); Sunjoo Kang, “The West and Ignore the Rest: Conceptualization of World History in American High School Textbooks, 1875–1934” (PhD Thesis, Indiana University, Bloomington, 2000). 7 This imbalance is most noticeable in studies of textbooks in the United States, which overwhelmingly favor American history. Some representative works include Ruth Miller Elson, Guardians of Tradition: American Schoolbooks of the Nineteenth Century (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1964); James Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (New York: The New Press, 1995); Joseph Moreau, Schoolbook Nation: Conflicts over American History Textbooks from the Civil War to the Present (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2003); Kyle Ward, History in the Making: An Absorbing Look at How American History Has Changed in the Telling Over the Last 200 Years (New York: The New Press, 2007). 8 The most well documented public controversy continues to be the debate over the National History Standards in the 1990s. Internally, disputes over the form and content of World History were central to inner workings of the committee, but the public outcry centered almost exclusively on American history. See Gary Nash, Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross Dunn, History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past (New York: Vintage Books, 1997); Linda Symcox, Whose History? The Struggle for National Standards in American Classrooms (New York: Teachers College Press, 2002). 9 The most thorough scholarly overview of the 2010 TEKS controversy is Keith Erekson, ed., Politics and the History Curriculum: The Struggle Over Standards in Texas and the Nation (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). More recently, see Ronald Evans, Fear and Schooling: Understanding the Troubled History of Progressive Education (New York: Routledge, 2020), Chapter 5. 10 One of the only professional historians that served as an ‘expert reviewer,’ Jesús F. de la Teja, explicitly acknowledged that he did not attempt to review any non-U.S. focused content. Jesús F. de la Teja, “A Voice Crying in the

Introduction  17 Wilderness? An Expert Reviewer’s Experience,” in Erekson, Politics and the History Curriculum, 64. Mark Chancey provides a helpful overview of the ‘expert reviewers’ in “Rewriting History for a Christian America: Religion and the Texas Social Studies Controversy of 2009–2010,” The Journal of Religion 94, no. 3 (2014): 325–353. 11 For the specific outcomes of the TEKS revision on World History, see Thomas Barker, “The Good, the Bad, & It’s Only Going to Get Uglier: Looking at the New Texas State Standards in World History,” The Middle Ground Journal 3 (Fall, 2011): 1–14; David C. Fisher, “A Missed Opportunity for World History in Texas,” in Erekson, Politics and the History Curriculum, 171–193. 12 For an overview of the literature, see Brian Girard and Lauren McArthur Harris, “Global and World History Education,” in Wiley International Handbook of History Teaching and Learning, eds. Scott Alan Metzger and Lauren Harris McArthur (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2018), 253–279. 13 For examples of the broad overview approach as a primer for researchers and teachers, see Ross Dunn, Laura Mitchell, and Kerry Ward, eds., The New World History: A Field Guide for Teachers and Researchers (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016; Manning, Navigating World History. 14 Gilbert Allardyce, “The Rise and Fall of the Western Civilization Course,” The American Historical Review 87, no. 3 (1982): 695–725; Gilbert Allardyce, “Toward World History: American Historians and the Coming of the World History Course,” Journal of World History 1, no. 1 (1990): 23–76. 15 Allardyce, “The Rise and Fall of the Western Civilization Course,” 725. 16 Eva-Maria Swidler, “Defending Western Civ: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Course,” World History Connected 4, no. 2 (2007); Eckhardt Fuchs and Karen Oslund provide more detailed numbers on the continued prevalence of Western Civ courses in “Guest Editorial: Teaching World History: Introductory Remarks,” World History Connected 3, no. 3 (2006). 17 Ross Dunn argued in this vein as early as 1983. Ross Dunn, “Students Need World History to Gain a Rounded Perspective,” World History Bulletin 1, no. 1 (1983): 9. 18 Allardyce, “Towards World History,” 62. 19 A Google Scholar search, for instance, revealed that “The Rise and Fall of the Western Civilization Course” has been cited 192 times, and “Towards World History” has been cited 120 times (search conducted in February, 2022). These include many of the field-defining works on academic world history over the past 30 years. 20 Though there are problems even when applied to the university level, as pointed out by Daniel Segal, “‘Western Civ’ and the Staging of History in American Higher Education,” American Historical Review 105, no. 3 (2000): 770–805. 21 An exception to this is Martin Alm, “Europe in American World History Textbooks,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies 12, no. 3 (2014): 237–257. 22 As early as 1933 H.C. Fenn called for a ‘de-occidentalization’ of the World History course that would involve far more content on Asian civilizations. “World History for this International Age,” The Historical Outlook 24, no. 3 (1933): 193–200. Marshall Hodgson, a pioneer in the field of world history, offered a similar critique in 1944. “World History and a World Outlook,” Social Studies 35, no. 7 (1944): 297–301. For more recent examinations of Eurocentrism in World History, see: Marta Araújo & Silvia Rodríguez Maeso, “History textbooks, racism, and the critique of Eurocentrism: Beyond rectification or compensation,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 35, no. 7 (2012):

18 Introduction 1266–1286; Tamer Balcı, “Islam and the Middle East in Texas Textbooks,” Digest of Middle East Studies 27, no. 2 (2018): 227–260; J.M. Blaut, The Colonizer’s Model of the World; Michael Marino and Jane Bolgatz, “Weaving a Fabric of World History? Analysis of U.S. State High School World History Standards,” Theory and Research in Social Education 38, no. 3 (2010): 366– 394; John Willinsky, Learning to Divide the World: Education at Empire’s End (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1998). 23 This has been the case within the U.S. beginning with a course known as General History in the 19th century. Until very recently, this focus on World History was unique to U.S. schools. See Ross Dunn, “World History Education Around the World,” Forthcoming article in The History Teacher. 24 R.O. Hughes, The Making of Today’s World (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1935) iii. 25 Arthur William Dunn, The Social Studies in Secondary Education: Report of the Committee on the Reorganization of Secondary Education of the National Education Association (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1916), 9. 26 For more on the nationalism of the progressive education movement, see Cody Ewert, Making Schools American: Nationalism and the Origin of Modern Educational Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022). 27 Dunn, The Social Studies in Secondary Education, 24. 28 Texas Education Agency, Chapter 113. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies. Austin: Texas Education Agency, 2018. Accessed June 3, 2020, 15. https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/Ch%20113%20Sub%20C %20High%20School_clean.pdf 29 Rachel D. Hutchins, Nationalism and History Education: Curricula and Textbooks in the United States and France (New York: Routledge, 2016), 12. 30 William McNeill, “What We Mean by the West,” Orbis 41, no. 4 (1997): 522. 31 Douglas Northrop, “The Challenge of World History,” in Douglas Northrop, ed., A Companion to World History, 7. Similarly, Jerry Bentley argues that the field of world history has to overcome its “fixation on the nation-state,” which he calls one of the birthmarks of the field. “The Task of World History,” in Jerry Bentley, ed., The Oxford Handbook of World History. By contrast Ross Dunn argues that the purpose of world history in the schools should not be “to promote global government or undermine the nation-state, but to study the history of humankind writ large.” Ross Dunn, “The Two World Histories,” Social Education 72, no. 5 (2008): 263. 32 A.K. King, “Is World History as Successful as We Thought It Would Be?” The High School Journal 20, no. 5 (1937): 186. 33 Walter Russell Mead, Chester Finn Jr., and Martin A. Davis, The State of World History Standards (Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2006), 15. 34 For an overview, see David Christian, Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011). 35 My thanks to David Fisher who read an earlier draft of this chapter and offered feedback to help better distinguish between the content selection and the more fundamental task of crafting an interpretive framework. 36 Jason Allen, “The Treatment of the Monotheistic Religions in World History High School Textbooks: A Comparison of Sample Editions 2001–2007” (Ed.D. Thesis, West Virginia University, 2009); Susan Besse, “Placing Latin America in World History Textbooks,” Hispanic American Historical Review 84, no. 3 (2004) 411–422; Michelle Commeyras and Donna Alvermann, “Reading about Women in World History Textbooks from one Feminist

Introduction  19 Perspective,” Gender and Education 8, no. 1 (1996): 31–48; Margaret Crocco, “Teaching About Women in World History,” The Social Studies 102, no. 1 (2010): 18–24; Lucien Ellington, “Asia in World History: Notes on Pedagogical Scholarship,” Southeast Review of Asian Studies 30 (2008): 177–181; Richard Hamilton, Miseducating Americans: Distortions of Historical Understanding (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2015); Julian Heilig, Keffrelyn Brown, and Anthony Brown, “The Illusion of Inclusion: A Critical Race Theory Textual Analysis of Race and Standards,” Harvard Education Review 82, no. 3 (2012): 403–424; Jiyoung Kang, “Not Inferior but Backward: Representation of Asia in U.S. World History Textbooks During the Interwar Period,” American Educational History Journal 47, no. 1 (2020): 85–100; Kang, “The West and Ignore the Rest”; Julio Noboa, “Missing Pages from the Human Story: World History According to Texas Standards,” Journal of Latinos and Education 11 (2012): 47–62. 37 Mead, The State of World History Standards, 6. 38 For scholarly works on Eurocentrism, see: Blaut, The Colonizer’s Model of the World; Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000); Alf Dirlik, Vinay Bahl, and Peter Gran, eds., History after the Three Worlds: Post-Eurocentric Historiographies (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000); Peter Gran, Beyond Eurocentrism: A New View of Modern World History (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1996); Segal, “‘Western Civ’ and the Staging of History in American Higher Education”; Lufti Sunar, Eurocentrism at the Margins: Encounters, Critics and Going Beyond (London: Routledge, 2016). 39 Marshall Hodgson called for the expansion of the curriculum as early as the Second World War. “World History and a World Outlook.” Ian Tyrrell argues, in fact, that advocacy from professional historians in the post-World War II era focused so much on American history that it led to a diminution of World History in the schools. Ian Tyrrell, Historians in Public: The Practice of American History, 1890–1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). For an early critique from an anthropologist, see Rachel Reese Sady, “Anthropology and World History Texts,” The Phi Delta Kappan 45, no. 5 (1964): 247–251. For a scholarly history of this period, see Jonathan Zimmerman, “Brown-ing the American Textbook: History, Psychology, and the Origins of Modern Multiculturalism,” History of Education Quarterly 44, no. 1 (2004): 46–69; Zimmerman, Whose America? 40 See, for instance: Ehaab Abdou, “Toward Embracing Multiple Perspectives in World History Curricula: Interrogating Representations of Intercultural Exchanges Between Ancient Civilizations in Quebec Textbooks,” Theory & Research in Social Education 45, no. 3 (2017): 378–412; Susan Besse, “Placing Latin America in World History Textbooks,” Hispanic American Historical Review 84, no. 3 (2004): 411–422; Jane Bolgatz and Michael Marino, “Incorporating More of the World into World History Textbooks,” World History Connected 11, no. 2 (2014). Accessed June 30, 2020. https:// worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/11.2/bolgatz.html; Tadashi Dozono, “The Passive Voice of White Supremacy: Tracing Epistemic and Discursive Violence in the World History Curriculum,” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 42, no. 1 (2020): 1–26; Alexander Maxwell, “Regionalism and the Critique of Eurocentrism: A Europeanist’s Perspective on Teaching Modern World History,” World History Connected 9, no. 3 (2012). Accessed July 7, 2020. https://worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.

20 Introduction edu/9.3/forum_maxwell_rev.html; Julio Noboa, “Missing Pages from the Human Story.” 41 Frances Fitzgerald, America Revised: History Schoolbooks in the Twentieth Century (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979); Harriet TysonBernstein, “Textbook Development in the United States: How Good Ideas Become Bad Textbooks,” in Textbooks in the Developing World: Economic and Educational Choices, eds. Joseph Farrell and Stephen Heyneman (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1989), 72–87. 42 This has led to criticisms of self-censorship in textbooks. See Joan Delfattore, What Johnny Shouldn’t Read: Textbook Censorship in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Diane Ravitch, The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003). 43 See Girard and Harris, “Global and World History Education”; Michael Marino and Jane Bolgatz, “Weaving a Fabric of World History? Analysis of U.S. State High School World History Standards,” Theory and Research in Social Education 38, no. 3 (2010): 366–394; Michael Marino and Jane Bolgatz, “Incorporating More of the World into World History Textbooks: A Review of High School World History Texts,” World History Connected 11, no. 2 (2014). Accessed June 30, 2020. https://worldhistoryconnected.press. uillinois.edu/11.2/bolgatz.html 44 Tim Keirn, “History Curriculum, Standards, and Assessment Policies,” in Metzger and Harris, Wiley International Handbook of History Teaching and Learning, 13–36. 45 James Leming, Lucien Ellington, Kathleen Porter, Where Did the Social Studies Go Wrong? (Washington, DC: The Fordham Foundation, 2003); Mead, The State of World History Standards; Diane Ravitch, A Consumer’s Guide to High School History Textbooks (Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2004). 46 Jonathan Burack, “The Student, the World, and the Global Education Ideology,” in Leming, Ellington, and Porter, Where Did the Social Studies Go Wrong? 40–69; Gilbert Sewall, Islam in the Classroom: What the Textbooks Tell Us (New York: American Textbook Council, 2008). 47 Rolla M. Tryon, The Social Sciences as School Subjects (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1935), 222. 48 There are, of course, exceptions, including: Jawaharlal Nehru, Glimpses of World History (Allahabad: Kitabistan, 1934–1935); Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West 2 vols. (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1918– 1922); Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History 12 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1933–1961); H.G. Wells, A Short History of the World (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1922). William McNeill’s The Rise of the West: A short History of the Human Community (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963) is usually thought of as the origin point for the contemporary academic field of world history. 49 Allardyce, “Toward World History”; Dunn, Mitchell, and Ward, The New World History; Manning, Navigating World History. 50 This sentiment was evident very early on in the publications of the World History Association. Ross Dunn, “Students Need World History to Gain a Rounded Perspective”; Peter Stearns, Meaning over Memory: Recasting the Teaching of Culture & History (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993). 51 Peter Stearns, “A Modest Proposal,” Perspectives on History, May 1, 2005. Accessed June 29, 2020. https://www.historians.org/publications-anddirectories/perspectives-on-history/may-2005/a-modest-proposal

Introduction  21 52 Twenty states also offer a model based on the NCSS known as Social Studies World History. Robert B. Bain and Tamara L. Schriener, “Issues and Options in Creating a National Assessment in World History,” The History Teacher 38, no. 2 (2005): 266–267. 53 See Bain and Schriener, “Issues and Options in Creating a National Assessment in World History.” More recently, see Ross Dunn on the revisions to the California state standards in 2017. “The World History Course in the New Framework,” Social Studies Review 56 (2017–2018): 25–30. 54 Several members of the original AP World History Development Committee, which first met in 1999, were also members of the World History Association. “College Board Will Introduce New Course in AP World History in 2001– 2002,” World History Bulletin 15, no. 2 (1999): 20. 55 Tim Keirn reports that “APWH is the fastest growing course ever offered by the College Board.” Tim Keirn, “History Curriculum, Standards, and Assessment Policies,” in Metzger and Harris, Wiley International Handbook of History Teaching and Learning, 21. 56 Robert Bain reported that in the traditional World History course, what he calls the Western Civilization Plus model, which Texas utilizes, focuses on Europe for 70% of class-time. Setting the cap at 30% of class-time for Europe was a major change taken by the AP World History developers. Robert Bain, NAEP 12th Grade World History Assessment: Issues and Options (Washington, DC: National Assessment Governing Board, 2004) 7, 10. 57 Girard and Harris, “Global and World History Education,” 271. 58 Chester Finn and Andrew Scanlan, Learning in the Fast Lane: The Past, Present, and Future of Advanced Placement (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019). Other conservative organizations like the National Association of Scholars critique the APWH for removing too much of the West from their content. For a review of their critique, see Tom Laichas, “Is Europe burning? Thoughts on David Randall, the Disappearing Continent (National Association of Scholars, 2016),” World History Connected 14, 2 (2017). 59 See the course website here: https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/courses/apworld-history-modern. Accessed August 10, 2021. For more, see Sameer Rao, “Teachers Fight to Keep Pre-Colonial World History in AP Course,” Color Lines, June 12, 2018, https://www.colorlines.com/articles/teachers-fightkeep-pre-colonial-world-history-ap-course; Valerie Strauss, “AP World History Course Is Dropping Thousands of Years of Human Events- and Critics are Furious,” The Washington Post, June 15, 2018. https://www. washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/06/15/ap-world-historycourse-is-dropping-thousands-of-years-of-human-events-and-critics-are-furious/; Alia Wong, “The Controversy Over Just How Much History AP World History Should Cover,” The Atlantic, June 13, 2018. https://www.theatlantic. com/education/archive/2018/06/ap-world-history-controversy/562778/ 60 I have found no publications in World History Connected or the World History Bulletin, for instance, that raise these questions. Indeed, the College Board is one of the primary funders of World History Connected. https:// worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/ 61 AP Program, “National and State Summary Reports for 2019,” The College Board. Accessed July 29, 2020. https://research.collegeboard.org/programs/ ap/data/participation/ap-2019 There are also issues of access. A 2013 report from the College Board showed that only 10% of total test takers were Black, and 18.1% Hispanic, compared to 52.1% white test-takers. “The 10th Annual AP Report to the Nation: Subject Supplement in World History,” The College Board, 2014. Accessed July 29, 2020. https://research.collegeboard. org/programs/ap/data/nation/2014

22 Introduction 62 Philip Sadler, “Key Findings,” in AP: A Critical Examination of the Advanced Placement Program, eds. Philip Sadler et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2010), 264–265. 63 There is, of course, disagreement on this issue. Finn and Scanlon largely praise the College Board’s efforts to provide AP courses to traditionally underserved communities. Chester Finn and Andrew Scanlon, Learning in the Fast Lane, Chapter 2. My main point is that this merits more critical engagement from world historians concerned with the teaching of the subject in secondary schools. 64 This was the last year before the switch to the new format of World History: Modern. It should be noted that students do not have to take the exam even if they take the AP course, so the overall enrollment is higher than can be counted simply by number of exams taken. Division of Research and Analysis, “Advanced Placement Examination Results in Texas and the United States, 2018/2019,” Texas Education Agency, 2020, 8. Accessed June 15, 2020. https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/ap_tx_and_us_2018-19.pdf 65 Texas Education Agency, “Beginning of Year Enrollment Numbers,” Public Information Request Office. 66 The total number of students enrolled in AP courses was higher than the number of exams taken at 74,209. Texas Education Agency, “Teacher FTE Counts and Course Enrollment Reports,” 2012–2019. Accessed June 24, 2020. https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/adhocrpt/adfte.html 67 The total number of APWH tests taken across the United States in that year was 309,118. Division of Research and Analysis, “Advanced Placement Examination Results in Texas and the United States, 2018/2019.” 68 A word on terminology. I will use the term World History throughout this work, but in Texas the course is today referred to as World History Studies. This is further explained in Chapter 3. 69 Curricula were issued semi-regularly by the State Department of Education in Texas, later re-named the Texas Education Agency (TEA). For a full list of these World History curricula, see Appendix B. For textbooks, the analysis does not include electronic textbooks nor of textbooks specifically approved for use in the Advanced Placement course. Ebooks are not collected by libraries regularly, and separate books for the AP course were only approved once in the past century. For a complete list of textbooks, see Appendix A. 70 “Course of Study: Texas High Schools.” Texas State Department of Education Bulletin No. 196, 1925; W.A. Stigler, “Teaching Social Studies in Junior and Senior High Schools of Texas,” Bulletin: State Department of Education no. 392, 1938. 71 Sean Cunningham, Cowboy Conservatism: Texas and the Rise of the Modern Right (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2010). 72 For a collection of all of Dewey’s works see Harriet Simon, Barbara Levine, and Jo Ann Boydston, eds., John Dewey: The Collected Works, 1882–1953 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 1991). For a recent overview of progressive education in American history, see Ronald Evans, Fear and Schooling: Understanding the Troubled History of Progressive Education (New York: Routledge, 2020). 73 For more on nationalism and history education in Texas, see Hutchins, Nationalism and History Education. 74 For more on the initial standards movement in Texas, see: Bobbie Stevens Johnson, “Education Since 1960,” in Funkhouser, Education in Texas, 193– 204; Joyce E. Kyle Miller and Mary Louise McCabe, eds., Curriculum Revision: Mandates and Processes: Implications of House Bill 246 for Texas

Introduction  23 Schools (Garland, Texas: Ramsey Enterprises, 1984). For the national standards movement, see: Symcox, Whose History? 75 See Evans, Fear and Schooling, Chapter 5. 76 Of these, 395,057 were enrolled in the 10th grade, the traditional year for the World History course. Texas Education Agency, 2018 Comprehensive Biennial Report on Texas Public Schools, 22. Accessed July 28, 2020. https:// tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/comp_annual_biennial_2018.pdf 77 For an overview of the early years of the Texas textbook laws, see W.A. Stigler, “Textbooks in Texas,” State Department of Education Bulletin no. 350, 1935. 78 See Charles W. Funkhouser, Education in Texas: Policies, Practices, and Perspectives (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill, 2000), Chapter 26. 79 See Michael W. Apple and Linda Christian-Smith, The Politics of the Textbook (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 1991); Tyson-Bernstein, “Textbook Develop­ ment in the United States”; Chester Finn, Diane Ravitch, and David Whitman, The Mad, Mad World of Textbook Adoption (Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2004); Diane Ravitch, The Language Police. 80 Erekson, Politics and the History Curriculum, xi; Brian Thevenot, “The Textbook Myth,” The Texas Tribune, March 26, 2010. Accessed June 16, 2020. https://www.texastribune.org/2010/03/26/texas-textbooks-nationalinfluence-is-a-myth/ The American Textbook Council similarly argues that Texas does not have an outsize influence over the national textbook market anymore. American Textbook Council, “Widely Adopted History Textbooks.” Accessed June 20, 2020. https://www.historytextbooks.net/adopted.htm 81 Allan Kownslar, The Great Texas Social Studies Textbook War of 1961–1962 (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2020) Footnote on page 282; Morgan Smith, “Schools, Textbook Publishers Adjust to Power Shift,” The Texas Tribune, October 29, 2011. Accessed June 16, 2020. https://www. texastribune.org/2011/09/29/school-districts-publishers-adjust-new-market/ 82 Publishers continue to participate in the adoption process, and many school districts continue to purchase from the officially adopted lists. Catherine Gewertz, “States Ceding Power Over Classroom Materials,” Education Week, February 17, 2015. Accessed June 16, 2020. https://www.edweek.org/ew/ articles/2015/02/18/states-ceding-power-over-classroom-materials.html 83 For research on how students process information learned from textbooks, see: Richard J. Paxton, “A Deafening Silence: History Textbooks and the Students Who Read Them,” Review of Educational Research 69, no. 3 (1999): 315–339; Dan Porat, “It’s Not Written Here, But This is What Happened: Student’s Cultural Comprehension of Textbook Narratives on the ArabIsraeli Conflict,” American Education Research Journal 41, no. 4 (2004): 963–996; Dan Porat, “Who Fired First? Student’s Construction of Meaning from One Textbook Account of the Israeli-Arab Conflict,” Curriculum Inquiry 36, no. 3 (2006): 251–271; Peter Stearns, “Student Identities and World History Teaching,” The History Teacher 33, no. 2 (2000): 185–192. 84 Eckhardt Fuchs and Annekatrin Bock argue that “Textbooks matter…They always contain and enshrine underlying norms and values; they transform constructions of identity; and they generate specific patterns of perceiving the world.” “Introduction,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Textbook Studies, eds. Eckhardt Fuchs and Annekatrin Bock (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). 85 On the poor state of teacher-education in world history, see: Dunn, Mitchell, and Ward eds., The New World History, “Introduction”; Girard and McArthur Harris, “Global and World History Education”; Deborah Smith

24 Introduction Johnston, “World History Education,” in Palgrave Advances in World Histories, ed. Marnie Hughes-Warrington (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 256–278. This problem is acute in World History, but is also an issue for all history courses taught at the secondary level. History has a high percentage of ‘out-of-field’ teaching, since many states do not require even a minor in history to teach the subject. Diane Ravitch, “The Educational Backgrounds of History Teachers,” in Knowing, Teaching & Learning History: National and International Perspectives, eds. Peter Stearns, Peter Seixas, and Sam Wineburg (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 143–155. 86 The National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (Washington, DC: Department of Education, 1983). 87 The tension between older and newer textbook approaches is explored by Bolgatz and Marino, “Incorporating More of the World into World History Textbooks.” 88 See Ewert, Making Schools American. For more on the rise of mass education across the globe, see Laurence Brockliss and Nicola Sheldon, eds., Mass Education and the Limits of State-Building, c. 1870–1930 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Johannes Westberg, Lukas Boser, and Ingrid Brüwhiler, eds., School Acts and the Rise of Mass Schooling: Education Policy in the Long Nineteenth Century (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). 89 Bolgatz and Marino, “Incorporating More of the World into World History Textbooks.” 90 David Armitage, “In Defense of Presentism,” in History and Human Flourishing, ed. Darrin McMahon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 20. Accessed on July 3, 2022, https://scholar.harvard.edu/armitage/publications/ defense-presentism 91 For more on World History Textbooks and ancient civilizations, see Ehaab Abdou, “Toward Embracing Multiple Perspectives in World History Curricula.” 92 “Social Studies in the Secondary Schools,” State Department of Education Bulletin no. 503, 1949.

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Introduction  25 American Textbook Council. “Widely Adopted History Textbooks,” 2018. https://www.historytextbooks.net/adopted.htm Apple, Michael W., and Linda K. Christian-Smith, eds. The Politics of the Textbook. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 1991. Araújo, Marta, and Silvia Rodríguez Maeso. “History Textbooks, Racism and the Critique of Eurocentrism: Beyond Rectification or Compensation.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 35, no. 7 (2012): 1266–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870. 2011.600767 Armitage, David. “In Defense of Presentism.” In History and Human Flourishing, edited by Darrin McMahon. Oxford Handbook Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. https://scholar.harvard.edu/armitage/publications/ defense-presentism Bain, Robert B. NAEP 12th Grade World History Assessment: Issues and Options. Washington, DC: National Assessment Governing Board, 2004. Bain, Robert B., and Tamara L. Shreiner. “Issues and Options in Creating a National Assessment in World History.” The History Teacher 38, no. 2 (2005): 241–71. Balcı, Tamer. “Islam and the Middle East in Texas Textbooks.” Digest of Middle East Studies 27, no. 2 (2018): 227–60. Barker, Thomas. “The Good, the Bad, & It’s Only Going to Get Uglier: Looking at the New Texas State Standards in World History.” The Middle Ground Journal 3, no. Fall (2011): 1–14. Beck, Roger B., Linda Black, Philip C. Naylor, and Dahia Ibo Shabaka. World History: Patterns of Interaction. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell Inc., 1999. Bentley, Jerry H., ed. The Oxford Handbook of World History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Berg, Christopher, and Theodore Christou, eds. The Palgrave Handbook of History and Social Studies. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. Besse, Susan K. “Placing Latin America in World History Textbooks.” Hispanic American Historical Review 84, no. 3 (2004): 411–22. Blaut, J.M. The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History. New York: The Guilford Press, 1993. Bolgatz, Jane, and Michael Marino. “Incorporating More of the World into World History Textbooks: A Review of High School World History Texts.” World History Connected 11, no. 2 (June 2014). https://worldhistoryconnected. press.uillinois.edu/11.2/bolgatz.html Brockliss, Laurence, and Nicola Sheldon, eds. Mass Education and the Limits of State-Building, c. 1870–1930. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Burton, Antoinette. A Primer for Teaching World History: Ten Design Principles. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012. Cavanaugh, Sean. “World History and Geography Gain Traction in Class; Seeds of Internationally Themed Lesson Plans Were Planted in the 1980s.” Education Week 26, no. 28 (March 16, 2007): 10. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Chancey, Mark A. “Rewriting History for a Christian America: Religion and the Texas Social Studies Controversy of 2009–2010.” The Journal of Religion 94, no. 3 (2014): 325–53.

26 Introduction Christian, David. Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. Clark, Giles, and Angus Phillips. Inside Book Publishing. 6th Edition. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2020. “College Board Will Introduce New Course in AP World History in 2001–2002.” World History Bulletin 15, no. 2 (1999): 20. Commeyras, Michelle, and Donna E. Alvermann. “Reading about Women in World History Textbooks from One Feminist Perspective.” Gender and Education 8, no. 1 (1996): 31–48. Crocco, Margaret Smith. “Teaching About Women in World History.” The Social Studies 102, no. 1 (2010): 18–24. Cunningham, Sean P. Cowboy Conservatism: Texas and the Rise of the Modern Right. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2010. Delfattore, Joan. What Johnny Shouldn’t Read: Textbook Censorship in America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. Dirlik, Arif, Vinay Bahl, and Peter Gran, eds. History after the Three Worlds: Post-Eurocentric Historiographies. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000. Division of Research and Analysis. “Advanced Placement Examination Results in Texas and the United States, 2018–2019.” Texas Education Agency, 2020. https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/ap_tx_and_us_2017-18.pdf Dozono, Tadashi. “The Passive Voice of White Supremacy: Tracing Epistemic and Discursive Violence in World History Curriculum.” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 42, no. 1 (2020): 1–26. Dunn, Arthur William. The Social Studies in Secondary Education: Report of the Committee on the Reorganization of Secondary Education of the National Education Association. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1916. Dunn, Ross. “The Two World Histories.” Social Education 72, no. 5 (2008): 257–63. ———. “World History Education Around the World.” Unpublished Manuscript, Forthcoming. Dunn, Ross E. “Students Need World History to Gain a Rounded Perspective.” World History Bulletin 1, no. 1 (1983): 9–10. ———. “The World History Courses in the New Framework.” Social Studies Review 56 (2017): 25–30. Dunn, Ross, Laura Mitchell, and Kerry Ward, eds. The New World History: A Field Guide for Teachers and Researchers. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016. Ellington, Lucien. “Asia in World History: Notes on Pedagogical Scholarship.” Southeast Review of Asian Studies 30 (2008): 177–81. Elson, Ruth Miller. Guardians of Tradition: American Schoolbooks of the Nineteenth Century. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1964. Erekson, Keith, ed. Politics and the History Curriculum: The Struggle Over Standards in Texas and the Nation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Evans, Ronald. Fear and Schooling: Understanding the Troubled History of Progressive Education. Routledge Research in Education. New York: Routledge, 2020. Evans, Ronald W. The Social Studies Wars: What Should We Teach the Children? New York: Teachers College Press, 2004.

Introduction  27 Ewert, Cody. Making Schools American: Nationalism and the Origin of Modern Educational Politics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022. Farrell, Joseph P., and Stephen P. Heyneman, eds. Textbooks in the Developing World: Economic and Educational Choices. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1989. Fenn, Henry C. “World History for This International Age.” The Historical Outlook 24, no. 4 (1933): 193–200. Finn, Chester E., Diane Ravitch, and David Whitman. The Mad, Mad World of Textbook Adoption. Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2004. Finn, Chester E., and Andrew Scanlan. Learning in the Fast Lane: The Past, Present, and Future of Advanced Placement. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019. Fischer, Fritz. The Memory Hole: The U.S. History Curriculum Under Siege. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc., 2014. Fisher, David C. “What’s Wrong (and Right) with World History in Texas.” World History Bulletin 26, no. 2 (2010): 29–33. Fitzgerald, Frances. America Revised: History Schoolbooks in the Twentieth Century. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979. Fuchs, Eckhardt, and Annekatrin Bock. The Palgrave Handbook of Textbook Studies. Palgrave Handbooks. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Fuchs, Eckhardt, and Karen Oslund. “Guest Editorial: Teaching World History: Introductory Remarks.” World History Connected 3, no. 3 (2006). https:// worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/3.3/editorial.html Funkhouser, Charles W., ed. Education in Texas: Policies, Practices, and Perspectives. 9th Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill, 2000. Gambrill, J. Montgomery. “The New World History.” The Historical Outlook 18, no. 6 (1927): 265–67. Gaudelli, William. World Class: Teaching and Learning in Global Times. New York: Routledge, 2011. Gewertz, Catherine. “States Ceding Power Over Classroom Materials.” Education Week, February 17, 2015. https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/02/18/ states-ceding-power-over-classroom-materials.html Good, John M., and Richard B. Ford. The Shaping of Western Society: Tradition and Change in Four Societies: An Inquiry Approach. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1971. Gran, Peter. Beyond Eurocentrism: A New View of Modern World History. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1996. Hamilton, Richard F. Miseducating Americans: Distortions of Historical Understanding. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2015. Harris, Lauren McArthur. “Building Coherence in World History: A Study of Instructional Tools and Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge.” PhD, University of Michigan, 2008. Heilig, Julian Vasquez, Keffrelyn D. Brown, and Anthony L. Brown. “The Illusion of Inclusion: A Critical Race Theory Textual Analysis of Race and Standards.” Harvard Education Review 82, no. 3 (2012): 403–24. Hertzberg, Hazel. Social Studies Reform 1880–1980. Boulder, CO: Social Science Education Consortium, 1981. Hodgson, Marshall. “World History and a World Outlook.” Social Studies 35, no. 7 (1944): 297–301.

28 Introduction Holt, Sol, and John R. O’Connor. Exploring World History. New York: Globe Book Company, 1969. Hughes, R.O. The Making of Today’s World. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1935. Hughes-Warrington, Marnie, ed. Palgrave Advances in World Histories. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2005. Hutchins, Rachel D. Nationalism and History Education: Curricula and Textbooks in the United States and France. Routledge Research in International and Comparative Education. New York: Routledge, 2016. Kang, Jiyoung. “Not Inferior But Backward: Representation of Asia in U.S. World History Textbooks During the Interwar Period.” American Educational History Journal 47, no. 1 (2020): 85–100. Kang, Sunjoo. “The West and Ignore the Rest: Conceptualizations of World History in American High School Textbooks, 1875–1934.” Ph.D., Indiana University, 2000. King, A.K. “Is World History as Successful as We Thought It Would Be?” The High School Journal 20, no. 5 (1937): 182–87. Kownslar, Allan O. The Great Texas Social Studies Textbook War of 1961–1962. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2020. Laichas, Tom. “Is Europe Burning? Thoughts on David Randall, The Disappearing Continent (National Association of Scholars, 2016),” World History Connected 14, no. 2 (2017). Leming, James, Lucien Ellington, and Kathleen Porter. Where Did the Social Studies Go Wrong? Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, 2003. Loewen, James. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: The New Press, 1995. Manning, Patrick. Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Marino, Michael, and Jane Bolgatz. “Weaving a Fabric of World History? Analysis of U.S. State High School World History Standards.” Theory and Research in Social Education 38, no. 3 (2010): 366–94. Maxwell, Alexander. “Regionalism and the Critique of Eurocentrism: A Europeanist’s Perspective on Teaching Modern World History.” World History Connected 9, no. 3 (2012). https://worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/ 9.3/forum_maxwell_rev.html McNeill, William. The Rise of the West: A Short History of the Human Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963. ———. “What We Mean By The West.” Orbis 41, no. 4 (1997): 513–24. Mead, Walter Russell. The State of State World History Standards. Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2006. Metzger, Scott Alan, and Lauren McArthur Harris, eds. Wiley International Handbook of History Teaching and Learning. Wiley Handbooks in Education. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2018. Miller, Joyce E., and Mary McCabe, eds. Curriculum Revision: Mandates and Processes: Implications of House Bill 246 for Texas Schools. Garland, TX: Ramsey Enterprises, 1984. Moreau, Joseph. Schoolbook Nation: Conflicts over American History Textbooks from the Civil War to the Present. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2003.

Introduction  29 Nash, Gary, Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross Dunn. History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Nehru, Jawaharlal. Glimpses of World History. Allahabad: Kitabistan, 1934. Noboa, Julio. “Missing Pages From the Human Story: World History According to Texas Standards.” Journal of Latinos and Education 11 (2012): 47–62. Northrop, Douglas, ed. A Companion to World History. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley, 2012. Paxton, Richard J. “A Deafening Silence: History Textbooks and the Students Who Read Them.” Review of Educational Research 69, no. 3 (1999): 315–39. Porat, Dan A. “It’s Not Written Here, but This is What Happened: Students’ Cultural Comprehension of Textbook Narratives on the Arab-Israeli Conflict.” American Education Research Journal 41, no. 4 (2004): 963–96. ———. “Who Fired First? Students’ Construction of Meaning from One Textbook Account of the Israeli-Arab Conflict.” Curriculum Inquiry 36, no. 3 (2006): 251–71. Rao, Sameer. “Teachers Fight to Keep Pre-Colonial World History in AP Course.” Color Lines, June 12, 2018. https://www.colorlines.com/articles/teachers-fightkeep-pre-colonial-world-history-ap-course Ravitch, Diane. The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. ———. A Consumer’s Guide to High School History Textbooks. Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2004. ———. “History’s Struggle to Survive in the Schools.” OAH Magazine of History 21, no. 2 (April 2007): 28–32. Roupp, Heidi. Teaching World History: A Resource Book. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1997. Sadler, Philip M., Gerhard Sonnert, Robert H. Tai, and Kristin Klopfenstein, eds. AP: A Critical Examination of the Advanced Placement Program. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2010. Sady, Rachel Reese. “Anthropology and World History Texts.” The Phi Delta Kappan 45, no. 5 (1964): 247–51. Segal, Daniel. “‘Western Civ’ and the Staging of History in American Higher Education.” The American Historical Review 105, no. 3 (2000): 770–805. Sewall, Gilbert T. “American History Textbooks: Where Do We Go from Here?” The Phi Delta Kappan 69, no. 8 (1988): 552–58. ———. World History Textbooks: A Review. New York: American Textbook Council, 2004. Simon, Harriet Furst, Barbara Levine, and Jo Ann Boydston, eds. John Dewey: The Collected Works 1882–1953. nnnn37 vols. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991. Smith, Morgan. “Schools, Textbook Publishers Adjust to Power Shift.” The Texas Tribune, October 29, 2011. https://www.texastribune.org/2011/09/29/schooldistricts-publishers-adjust-new-market/ Spengler, Oswald. The Decline of the West. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1918. Stavrianos, Leften, Loretta Kreider Andrews, John R. McLane, Frank Safford, and James E. Sheridan. A Global History of Man. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1970.

30 Introduction Stavrianos, Leften. “Periodization in World History Teaching: Identifying the Big Changes.” The History Teacher 20, no. 4 (1987): 561–80. Stearns, Peter. Meaning Over Memory: Recasting the Teaching of Culture & History. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. ———. “Student Identities and World History Teaching.” The History Teacher 33, no. 2 (2000): 185–92. ———. “A Modest Proposal.” Perspectives on History, May 1, 2005. https:// www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/ may-2005/a-modest-proposal Stearns, Peter N., Peter Seixas, and Sam Wineburg, eds. Knowing Teaching & Learning History: National and International Perspectives. New York: New York University Press, 2000. Strauss, Valerie. “AP World History Course Is Dropping Thousands of Years of Human Events- and Critics Are Furious.” The Washington Post, June 15, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/06/15/ap-worldhistory-course-is-dropping-thousands-of-years-of-human-events-and-critics-arefurious/ Sunar, Lufti, ed. Eurocentrism at the Margins: Encounters, Critics and Going Beyond. London: Routledgge, 2016. Swidler, Eva-Maria. “Defending Western Civ: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Course.” World History Connected 4, no. 2 (2007). https://­ worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/4.2/swidler.html Symcox, Linda. Whose History? The Struggle for National Standards in American Classrooms. New York: Teachers College Press, 2002. Texas Education Agency. “Beginning of Year Enrollment Numbers.” Public Information Request #42995. “Teacher FTE Counts and Course Enrollment Reports,” 2019 2012. https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/adhocrpt/adfte.html ———. “Beginning of Year Enrollment Numbers.” Public Information Request #42995, September 26, 2020. ———. “Beginning of Year Enrollment Numbers.” Public Information Request #42995. “Texas Education Agency Biennial Reports,” 2020 1970. ———. “The 10th Annual AP Report to the Nation: Subject Supplement in World History,” 2014. https://research.collegeboard.org/programs/ap/data/nation/ 2014 The College Board. “National and State Summary Reports for 2019,” 2019. https://research.collegeboard.org/programs/ap/data/participation/ap-2019 The National Commission on Excellence in Education. A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. Washington, DC: Department of Education, 1983. Thevenot, Brian. “The Textbook Myth.” The Texas Tribune, March 26, 2010. https://www.texastribune.org/2010/03/26/texas-textbooks-national-influenceis-a-myth/ Toynbee, Arnold. A Study of History. 12 vols. London: Oxford University Press, 1933. Tryon, Rolla M. The Social Sciences as School Subjects. Vol. Part XI: Report of the Commission on the Social Studies. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1935. Tyrrell, Ian. Historians in Public: The Practice of American History, 1890–1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Introduction  31 Wallbank, T. Walter, and James Quillen. Man’s Story: World History in Its Geographic Setting. Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1951. Wallbank, T. Walter, and Arnold Schrier. Living World History. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1969. Wallbank, T. Walter, Arnold Schrier, Donna Maier, Patricia Gutierrez-Smith, and Philip A. Roden. History and Life. Fourth Edition. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1990. Ward, Kyle. History in the Making: An Absorbing Look at How American History has Changed in the Telling over the Last 200 Years. New York: The New Press, 2007. Wells, H.G. A Short History of the World. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1922. Welty, Paul. Man’s Cultural Heritage: A World History. Revised. Philadelphia: J.P. Lippincott Company, 1969. Westberg, Johannes, Lukas Boser, and Ingrid Brüwhiler, eds. School Acts and the Rise of Mass Schooling: Education Policy in the Long Nineteenth Century. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. Willinsky, John. Learning to Divide the World: Education at Empire’s End. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1998. Wong, Alia. “The Controversy Over Just How Much History AP World History Should Cover.” The Atlantic, June 13, 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/ education/archive/2018/06/ap-world-history-controversy/562778/ Zimmerman, Jonathan. Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. ———. “Brown-Ing the American Textbook: History, Psychology, and the Origins of Modern Multiculturalism.” History of Education Quarterly 44, no. 1 (2004): 46–69.

2 History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s

World History emerged in secondary schools across the United States after a disciplinary battle between historians, who wanted several years of history courses for high schoolers, and advocates of the social studies, who wanted other disciplines in the social sciences like economics and civics represented in the American curriculum.1 An important result of this battle was that professional historians largely abdicated responsibility for the World History course for several decades, leaving the course orphaned from the professional historical community until the 1980s. Secondary school administrators, teachers, and social studies educators had a much greater role in shaping the course during these decades. There are two broad time periods to consider in these early decades of World History. First, from the 1920s through the late 1930s World History, and the entire social studies curriculum in Texas high schools was in a state of flux. Educators abandoned the traditional historical curriculum, but took some time before settling on a widely agreed upon replacement. World History earned a fixed place in the curriculum because it met the desires of progressive educators who wanted a stronger focus on citizenship training and a more efficient way to deliver content about the world.2 Now an entrenched feature of the curriculum, World History entered into a second period following the Second World War. The state-issued curriculum in 1949 embraced a Western Civilization approach that privileged European history and marginalized non-Western history. But critiques of this approach emerged by the early 1960s, leading to significant change. Curricula in 1961 and 1970 demanded more attention be paid to the non-Western world, and endorsed novel interpretive frameworks for the World History course. Textbooks authorized in the 1970s attempted new ways of organizing course content, including a regional Area Studies approach, and a global history approach pioneered by William McNeill. The chapter ends on this note of possibility, which would soon be eliminated in the era of state standards in the 1980s. World History’s time as an orphan was not one of static mimicry, but a vibrant, perhaps even chaotic, time of experimentation. DOI: 10.4324/9781003323785-2

History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s  33 A word should be said here about the two types of sources that I relied upon for this chapter and the next. The first are curricula produced for World History that were issued semi-regularly by the state of Texas.3 In  contrast to our present-day era of state-mandated standards (see Chapter  3), curricula in this early period offered recommendations or best practices rather than requirements. Stanford Professor of Education Larry Cuban persuasively argued that “curriculum theories did influence professional ideologies and vocabularies, courses of study, and some textbook content” but there was not “much evidence of significant change in teaching practices.”4 So, while these curriculum guides were significant to the educational history of the state, it is important to note that teachers may have been resistant to major swings in theory or practice suggested by these guides. However, after the Second World War, the Texas Education Agency began to assert more authority over accreditation standards, and eventually tied textbook adoption decisions to state-issued curricula. So even though they were not official mandates, these recommendations increasingly had teeth. Official curricula for World History responded to shifts in educational philosophy and classroom management as well as to wider global events, providing a useful window into the thought processes of leading Texas educators from the 1920s–1970s. The chapter also utilizes a numerical content analysis of textbook content. Using a methodology adapted from the work of historian Michael Marino, I sought to answer two broad questions. First, how much space, expressed in total pages, do textbooks dedicate to Western history as opposed to non-Western or global history? The idea of ‘the West’ does not have a fixed or consistent meaning, so defining exactly what counted as ‘Western’ proved challenging. In my analysis, the term ‘Western’ applies to Europe and North America (though the pre-Columbian Americas were classified as non-Western), but also to the Near East and parts of North Africa in the ancient world. Non-Western primarily applies to Asia, South and Central America, Africa, and the Middle East. I classified as global any textbook content that covered two or more geographical or cultural regions interacting in some meaningful economic, political, social, or cultural way. If a textbook organized material to emphasize a shared historical event with ramifications encompassing multiple geographical or cultural regions, I classified it as global. To calculate this information, I relied mostly on each textbook’s table of contents. But, especially for earlier textbooks, the table of contents did not always provide the necessary information. In such cases, I examined the chapters themselves to make a final determination.5 Secondly, how much space did each textbook dedicate to three broad chronological periods in world history, including prehistory to about the year 1500 C.E., from 1500 to 1945, and from 1945 to the present? The idea of an ancient, medieval, and modern world is a traditional way of

34  History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s organizing European history, but is a poor fit for a World History course since the chronology does not work as well for non-Western peoples. The year 1500 C.E. is here used as a point of demarcation for what historians today would call the Early Modern period, but it is important to note that this specific date has not been consistent over time. Especially for the first few decades of the course, World History textbooks used the European Renaissance and Protestant Reformation to demarcate modernity from the Middle Ages, even though the Renaissance started well before the year 1500 C.E. Later chapters will closely examine textbook narratives, but this numerical approach allows a panoramic view of the major organizational choices textbook authors made, indicating what content they believed was most important in human history. As noted in the introduction, I must stress that teachers have significant agency in how to present information, and students do not passively absorb textbook content. Nevertheless, curricula and textbooks were two of the central instruments for the teaching of World History over the past century, and together powerfully shaped the classroom experience.

The Origins of World History in Texas A turf war, the First World War, and the Great Depression set the stage for the emergence of high school World History in Texas. After a period of instability and uncertainty in the state’s curriculum, World History became an official recommendation in 1938. The reasons for this are complex, but can perhaps best be summed up by a commentator writing in 1929 who emphasized a curricular version of natural selection: between history and other subjects of the curriculum; between the two-year and the one-year course in history; between older and newer methods of teaching history. And the ones that can best adapt themselves to changing conditions, within and without the school, will survive.6 This section demonstrates how World History best suited the needs and desires of educators, social studies advocates, and high school administrators, even as it alienated professional historians. World History’s success came at the expense of a four-year plan recommended by the American Historical Association (AHA) that had powerfully shaped the American high school curriculum for a generation at the start of the 20th century. In fact, in the two decades preceding the emergence of the World History course, the AHA and professional historians were at the apex of their power over the American high school curriculum. Their prestigious status stemmed from the early professionalization of historians in the 19th century and the established place of history in

History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s  35 American universities.7 An 1898 report of the American Historical Association called The Study of History in Schools, and generally referred to as the Committee of Seven report, cemented the influence of historians. It fundamentally shaped the secondary school curriculum for a generation and is even today thought of as the ‘traditional’ way of approaching history in the schools.8 The Committee of Seven report recommended a prominent place for history in the high school curriculum, calling for a course of study in which students took four full years of history. The envisioned curriculum included Ancient History, Medieval and Modern European History, English History, and concluded their high school study with American History.9 The courses obviously privileged Europe, connecting the history of the United States to the ancient Greeks and Romans as well as the European past. English history received special praise, since the Committee of Seven saw the struggle for parliamentary democracy as the early narrative of the United States, so much so that any argument in favor of American History “holds almost equally true for the study of English history.”10 Later commentators criticized the emphasis on the distant past, but the four-year plan laid a chronological foundation culminating with American History.11 The new history curriculum envisioned by the Committee of Seven was a major blow to a pre-existing course called General History. First taught as early as the 1820s, and well-established in American high schools by the late 19th century, General History was the first ‘world history’ course in the American curriculum.12 General History typically lasted a year, and though it theoretically advocated for a global approach to history, in practice that focus centered on European developments.13 The Committee of Seven opposed General History because it would lead either to the remorseless memorization of nearly endless facts, or to an impossibly generalized, abstract, and ultimately meaningless course.14 In other words, there was no way to have a sound course that covered so much material so quickly. The four-year course of study advocated by the Committee of Seven, on the other hand, offered more time and in-depth study to avoid these problems. As it did elsewhere in the United States, the Committee of Seven’s report had a demonstrable impact on the Texas high school curriculum.15 By 1912, the Texas State Department of Education recommended a very similar four-year course of study for high schools rated first-class.16 Students took Ancient History, Medieval and Modern History to the French Revolution, Modern History with an Emphasis on English History, and American History during an expected four-year secondary curriculum.17 The organization was remarkably similar to the AHA’s recommendations, though there was a unique emphasis on Modern History in the third year. However, even this difference did not last long, as the state adopted a virtual copy of the Committee of Seven plan in 1915.18

36  History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s Enrollment numbers from 1920 bear out the continued significance of the Committee of Seven plan, but also reveal significant problems with the curriculum. The most popular courses by a wide margin were Ancient and Medieval History, lumped together in this measurement, with about 40% of students enrolled. Second in popularity was Modern History (21%), followed by American History (13%), and English History (10%). Of the more than 82000 students enrolled in a Texas high school history course in 1920, less than 1% of them enrolled in General History.19 Significantly, courses recommended for freshmen and sophomores had much higher enrollments than those recommended for juniors and seniors. These numbers indicate the widespread adoption of the Committee of Seven plan, but also illustrate one of its most intractable problems: since students often left before finishing a high school degree, they rarely finished the envisioned four-year course of study, and many students never took a secondary-level course in American History. The 1920 enrollment numbers also show that, despite Texas’ infatuation with the Committee of Seven’s plan, the high school General History course did not die out entirely in the state. The four-year plan was simply not feasible for all high schools in the state. In both 1912 and 1915, the State Department of Education recommended General History for high schools of the second and third class. These schools, often in smaller rural districts, had fewer teachers and less rigorous graduation requirements, making it difficult to offer a four-year slate of history courses.20 With these resource and time limitations, the much shorter General History course was an attractive option. With some small exceptions, the American Historical Association’s recommended history curriculum maintained a dominant influence over Texas high schools in the early 20th century. It is a remarkable fact, then, that only two decades following the First World War the subject of World History burst forth onto the scene and replaced the Committee of Seven system by the late 1930s. This tectonic shift happened for several reasons, especially a strong desire for history courses to focus on the present rather than the distant past, and dissatisfaction with a history-heavy approach in an increasingly crowded curriculum.21 Progressive advocates of the social studies, in particular, heavily criticized the traditional history approach. There is no consensus agreement on a precise and stable definition of the social studies. Education scholar E. Wayne Ross suggests that a core feature of the social studies is a tension between the “transmission of the cultural heritage of the dominant society” on the one hand, and the “development of critical thought” on the other.22 In 1916, a report commissioned by the National Education Association (NEA) and compiled by Arthur William Dunn, The Social Studies in Secondary Education, widely popularized the term social studies. The seminal document championed the social studies and strongly critiqued the traditional history

History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s  37 course of the early 20th century. The report said that the central goal of education was to instill a sense of citizenship, and for students to understand their place within contemporary society.23 Rather than the relentless memorization of facts, the NEA report said simply that history was educational “only as it is related to the present.”24 Present needs of the student and of contemporary society were paramount. The Social Studies in Education sought to abandon the Committee of Seven Plan in favor of a ‘Senior Cycle’ of courses (grades 10–12) consisting of European History, American History, and a new course called Problems of Democracy.25 Other national committees soon followed with slight variations of this model. In 1920, the American Sociological Society called for a tenth-grade course on ‘social evolution’ that would “trace the development of ideals and institutions, and reveal the solidarity of modern nations.”26 The Committee on History and Education for Citizenship in the Schools recommended a tenth-grade course on the “progress toward world democracy, 1650-present,” which would focus mainly on European history but pay some attention to the “rest of the non-American world.”27 These new reports make it clear that proponents of social studies were deeply dissatisfied with the traditional history curriculum. In part, this was a turf war, with advocates of sociology, political science, and other disciplines in the social sciences demanding more space in the American school curriculum. This did not mean that social studies advocates wanted to eliminate history from the curriculum, but to fold it within a wider spectrum of disciplines to make sure that students could be better informed about the modern problems of society. As education researcher Albert Shiels put it in 1922, social studies advocates wanted history to be  “less a patriarch, to which all members of the social study family would give obedience, than an elder of long experience, to advise and counsel.”28 In 1921, advocates of the social studies created the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), which soon became a leading voice influencing American K-12 history education.29 Within a year, the NCSS recommended a tenth-grade course on the Study of Nations, or World History.30 The name World History caught on during the interwar period largely because advocates wanted to distance the course from its discredited predecessor General History, and because of the intended focus on more recent history.31 The new course was not recommended by historians. In fact, during the 1920s and 1930s, the American Historical Association did not come to consensus on challenging the new social studies paradigm, and so “ceased to be an active presence in the further evolution of secondary education” for the next half century.32 Nevertheless, World History quickly caught on in American schools. By 1928, one estimate suggested that the course grew by over 200% nationally since 1914.33

38  History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s The national trend toward World History quickly made an impact in Texas, but it took time before the course became firmly entrenched in the high school curriculum. A key figure in this process was Annie Webb Blanton, elected the first female Superintendent of Texas Public Instruction in 1918. Cody Ewert argues that Blanton continued a trend of progressive reformers linking educational reform with overt nationalism, a process that began in Texas during the early 20th century, but only took root following the First World War.34 Among a wave of reforms, including passage of a revised state textbook adoption law, Blanton and R.L. Ragsdale penned a guide to History and the Social Sciences in 1920. They supported a program of ‘Americanization,’ arguing that World War I revealed “many unassimilated and unamalgamated” people who “had not caught the vision of America.”35 Stronger citizenship training and a focus on English language were, according to the Texas plan, the keys to ensuring that education would be a melting pot so that “every alien” could “come forth from this crucible 100 per cent pure American.”36 The focus on assimilation in the form of “Americanization” seems remarkably insensitive, and perhaps deeply troubling, to 21st-century readers more accustomed to hearing about diversity, but it was ostensibly not meant to be synonymous with uncritical, chest-thumping nationalism. According to Blanton and Ragsdale, history would instill responsible citizenship to all students. The subject would also provide education for native-born Americans to learn about the European background of many immigrant cultures, which could “eliminate much of the spread-eagle bombast” and “offensive contempt” for foreign cultures.37 Blanton and Ragsdale watered down some of the nativist rhetoric in their document, but it was clear that nationalism lay at the heart of their historical vision. ‘Americanization,’ then, involved history courses with a heavy focus on citizenship training and significant attention to non-American cultures. In this context, World History became an especially attractive option. But which of the new nationally recommended programs were the best fit in the state of Texas? Choosing a suitable course of study given the wide variety of high school types in the state proved challenging. Over the next two decades, the high school history curriculum fluctuated wildly as the Texas State Department of Education issued six different curricula for high school history between 1920 and 1938.38 By way of comparison, there have only been nine curricula issued in the more than 80 years since.39 That so many were issued so quickly reveals that state officials were trying to keep up with rapidly changing national norms and on-theground choices being made by individual schools and districts in the state. Curricular guides during these tumultuous decades reveal the increasing significance of World History, which in 1925 became an officially approved option for Texas high-schools. The state created multiple plans for two-, three-, and four-year high schools. Several options allowed

History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s  39 schools to offer either Modern History or World History. World History was never the first recommendation, nor was it ever recommended without an option for a different course, but this official recommendation signified the legitimacy of the course.40 Schools could either offer two years in European History, the Ancient and the Modern, or one year in World History.41 The curriculum also provided the first textbook recommendations for the subject in Texas history.42 Three of the longest-lasting trends in the teaching of World History in Texas, presentism, nationalism, and Eurocentrism, were evident from these first curricula. The very short description provided in 1925 expressed the idea that World History was synonymous with European History. The document traced history from the dawn of civilization, through the ancient Greeks and Romans, to the Middle Ages, and ultimately to the modern world.43 The three textbooks approved for the 1925 course reflected this emphasis, with an average of nearly 92% of content devoted to Western history topics.44 In the 1920s, as European imperial powers controlled much of the world, and as the United States had a high percentage of European immigrants, this focus on Europe seemed all too natural.45 In this sense, World History was very similar to its predecessor General History. A key difference was the emphasis on a social studies approach that stressed teaching past events which were directly relevant to present problems. Teachers were told that “care should be taken to connect current history with the past.”46 Textbooks increasingly embraced this presentist focus. The introduction to Our World Today and Yesterday declared that “all history is really about the present, since only those events and achievements of yesterday have been included that explain things as they are.”47 The three textbooks assigned for the course devoted an average of two-thirds of the total pages to the time period 1500 C.E.–present. In 1929 and 1932, Texas issued additional guidance on World History as the course became more popular. The 1929 curriculum explicitly addressed the relationship between history education and nationalism. If history was taught well, students would gain “a love of country, a respect for other nations, a spirit of tolerance for all classes and peoples, a desire and capacity to take a full and intelligent part in affairs, both domestic and world-wide in scope.”48 This statement closely paralleled the perspective of the 1916 NEA Report that patriotic citizenship was the chief desired outcome of history education, and would naturally involve knowledge of the world and respect for many different types of people. The Texas State Department of Education recommended World History for the ninth grade beginning in 1929, announcing also that the state would soon be paying for textbooks in the subject.49 However, the new curriculum continued to more strongly support a two-year sequence in European History, recommending World History in only one of three

40  History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s broad plans that schools could follow.50 The updated recommendations for World History continued to prize European history, an emphasis reflected in the 92.3% of content textbooks dedicated to Western history in the 1930–1935 adoption period. The only new book recommended in this adoption period for the course was Civilization in Europe which, as you might expect from the title, was a book of Western history. Given the continued focus on European history, it is surprising that the state-issued curricula in both 1929 and 1932 also included objectives for non-European history. The curricula listed the relationship between imperialism, nationalism, and democracy as especially significant. Teachers should include content on “the problem of submerged nationalities as a world problem,” “appreciate the civilization of the Orient,” and “see the significance of the contact between Oriental and Occidental civilization.”51 The problem, though, was that even when they did discuss areas outside of the West, textbooks and curricula prioritized Western perspectives. Civilization in Europe, for instance, contained about 61 pages (8.3%) of its content to non-Western history, most of which related to the “Expansion of Europe” in the 19th and 20th centuries. The authors declared that “modern civilization is European civilization.”52 This will be explored more fully in Chapters 4 and 5, but assumptions of European superiority were, and in many ways remain, fundamental to textbook World History narratives. World History’s position in Texas high schools greatly improved after a statewide overhaul of the entire curriculum begun in 1933.53 W.A. Stigler, the chair of the State Curriculum Executive Committee, was deeply influenced by progressive education theory, especially by the work of Harold Rugg.54 In the 1930s, Rugg was the most popular textbook author in the country, whose books caused considerable controversy late in that decade.55 Historian Joseph Moreau portrays Rugg as “a dedicated social critic and teacher” who “dreamed of using schools to reform American society.”56 Rugg’s activism became more strident in the wake of the Great Depression, as he increasingly advocated for society to move toward some form of collectivism. Ultimately, Rugg’s activist politics created a series of bitter conflicts over his popular textbook series.57 Paralleling the ideas of Harold Rugg, Stigler argued that the Great Depression signaled a need to move away from “rugged individualism” and toward a “subordination of the individual for the common collective good.”58 The school curriculum had failed in its primary task of preparing citizens for the Depression, and for the modern world more generally.59 State budgets for education were slashed in the context of the Depression, and a major goal of the curricular reform effort was to promote a more efficient and streamlined course of study. Quoting Rugg, the “Handbook for Curriculum Study” envisioned a progressive curriculum embracing “special reading and original investigation, a constantly

History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s  41 growing stream of opportunities for participation in open-forum discussion, debate, and exchange of ideas.”60 This half decade of curricular revision resulted in an extraordinary document released in late 1938 entitled Teaching Social Studies in Junior and Senior High Schools of Texas.61 What stands out was the dominance of a progressive, problem-oriented social studies perspective woven throughout the program from grades 6 through 12. There were two programs of study included, known as the “original” and the “alternate” courses. In the original, courses had no traditional disciplinary boundaries, but blended anthropology, sociology, economics, civics, political science, geography, psychology, history, ethics, and more to focus on contemporary social problems.62 A study of the world dominated the approach of both programs, replacing earlier recommendations that focused mostly on European History. In an appended document, one of the chief architects of the program, Wilson Little, crafted a list of 16 general objectives for social studies. Some of these are unsurprising for a progressive social studies document. The social studies would, for instance, help students understand contemporary social problems, and also provide students with direct training in democratic living and prepare them for effective citizenship.63 Other objectives focused specifically on major world issues. Students would gain an ability to understand the futility of warfare, an appreciation of the fact that human progress rested on the fundamental interdependence of nations, and would better appreciate the workers of the world.64 The 1938 program of study was designed to provide cohesive knowledge of local, national, and international institutions and issues over the several years of junior and senior high school. Each course was divided into eight broad categories: producing, distributing and consuming, communicating and transporting, mental and physical health, recreating, experiencing and expressing the beautiful, and learning.65 The program focused on social and economic relations, with only some concern for the traditional political framework of most World History courses up to that point. Both the original and alternate programs envisioned a substantial amount of coverage for international affairs. In the original program, students spent two years studying “the world as a community,” with World History figuring prominently in the tenth grade.66 The course was divided into eight problem-oriented sections corresponding to the overall categories for each grade level. For instance, students would consider “how production is affected by the problems of other nations.”67 Within that broad question-centered unit, students were expected to examine problems posed by warfare, imperialism, economic nationalism, and end with a consideration of how world conditions affected production in the United States.68 Rather than a traditional chronological narrative, students utilized history only insofar as it highlighted the broad questions

42  History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s and problems of the contemporary world. The 1938 courses in both the original and alternate programs spoke broadly of international problems, but did not make it clear how much content should focus on Western or non-Western topics. In the list of suggested activities for the year ten course, for instance, the majority of specific examples related to either the United States or to European nations, but there were also activities related to imperialism and economic nationalism that could have been applied to multiple areas of the world.69 Textbooks approved by the state for the period 1939–1947 exhibited many of the trends of their predecessors in the 1920s and early 1930s, and did not fully reflect the vision of the 1938 curriculum guide. Chronologically, the time period from 1500 C.E. to the present continued to dominate textbooks, with nearly 60% of content dedicated to these centuries. The texts continued to be focused on the West (88.8% of content), though marginally less so than their predecessor textbooks. The nearly complete dominance of Western content in textbooks was most noticeable in the distant past (pre-1500 C.E.). Of the five textbooks approved in Texas from 1939 to 1947, two of them contained no nonWestern content before 1500 C.E., and two of them contained a mere 2% of space on the entire world outside of the West.70 The fifth text, World History by Carlton Hayes, Parker Thomas Moon, and John Wayland, provided 14% of its content on the non-West before 1500 C.E.71 Dedicating more attention to areas outside of Europe was an explicit focus of this textbook, which declared that “the World History is really a world history,” relating “the history of so-called Western civilization to the history of China and Japan, of India, and of America…”72 But in the majority of textbooks during this time, areas outside of the West were stripped of their ancient history in the first generation of World History textbooks. The 1938 program represented both the high point of progressive social studies education in Texas high schools and the ascent of World History to officially approved status. Interestingly, the official terminology only gradually reflected the shift to World History. Texas curricular documents called the course World History in the 1920s and 1930s, but the state-issued textbook adoption lists and state law codes continued to refer to the course as General History. This continued until 1939, when the state textbook adoption list finally changed the nomenclature to World History. Curiously, this did not translate into official state legislation, which continued to use the term General History until the 1949 curricular revision. 73 The swiftness of these phenomena can be attributed to the powerful effects of the Great Depression on the educational apparatus of the state of Texas. Educators were looking for a more efficient way to teach the social sciences, one that would be cheaper and more carefully speak to contemporary problems. World History fit these requirements, and so

History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s  43 received official sanction for the first time. In a report to the Texas legislature that December, the State Board of Education reported that the results of the state-wide curriculum revision were excellent, and that “it should never be necessary to undertake such a state-wide movement again” as long as the program of study was continuously maintained.74 As the next section demonstrates, the Second World War and America’s changing place in the world prompted another curricular revision in the late 1940s, that once again took the subject in a new direction.

Tradition, Disruption, and Reaction in World History: 1949–1980 By the Second World War, the one-year course in World History was a fixture in the Texas curriculum. The war years were difficult for the education system, which dealt with severe teacher shortages and budget cuts.75 But following the war, there was a continued appreciation for the course. The United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, so it made sense to ensure that high school students learned about the outside world. New state-approved curricula written in 1949, 1961, and 1970 show how the course continued to evolve. This section argues that World History most explicitly embraced a Western Civilization approach with the 1949 curriculum, but that the Texas Education Agency (TEA) responded to criticisms of the course with a series of changes in the 1960s and 1970s that had a notable impact on textbook content. In 1949, the Texas State Department of Education released a document entitled “Social Studies in the Secondary Schools,” written by A.B. Martin and Gordon Worley, as a “suggested guide” for teachers and administrators.76 The new guidelines for social studies were very different than the problem-oriented curricula of the late 1930s. For one thing, they were much lengthier. At nearly 50 pages, the 1949 guidelines for World History provided far more explicit recommendations than previous or subsequent curricula. By comparison, World History guidelines in 1929 were six pages long, and in 1938, 11 pages. This is also far more content than subsequent curricula devoted to World History, as those issued in 1961 and 1970 were only a page in length.77 The 1949 curriculum also moved toward a more traditional model for the social studies in terms of both content and teaching style. Character traits such as “orderliness, loyalty to properly constituted authority, and accepted ideals” would help instill in students a “reverence for our democratic way of life.”78 And instead of the insistence on a problem-centered presentation of course content without regard for disciplinary boundaries, Martin and Worley argued that courses should be organized around textbook content, since the social studies were so broad that they “must be broken up into definite divisions for a more intelligent and vigorous presentation.”79 Martin and Worley strongly supported international content in the social studies. The architects of the 1949 curriculum argued that the

44  History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s social studies should “teach the student to appreciate his heritage” and realize that “world progress is gauged increasingly by international understanding and cooperation.”80 In their detailed outline for the World History course, Martin and Worley encouraged students to think of themselves as “citizens of the world as well as of our country.”81 This idea of an international understanding rooted in national patriotism was a hallmark of World History. The one-year course was broken up into two 18-week sections that followed a traditional Eurocentric chronology, with half of the course focused on the ancient world to the medieval era, and the second half centered on modern history.82 Uniquely, Martin and Worley designed the 1949 curricula to follow one of Texas’ adopted World History textbooks, The Making of the Modern World by R.O. Hughes.83 Hughes was a teacher from Pittsburgh and a prominent commentator on the subject of World History at the national level. Though he accepted some basic premises, Hughes criticized the more radically progressive social studies agenda of the 1930s. He particularly objected to statements that implied any form of collectivism, saying that “to many it connotes Communism.”84 In 1949, Hughes was on the advisory committee that produced a book for the National Council for the Social Studies on the teaching of World History.85 In his textbooks, Hughes showed “how the history of the United States is a part of the history of the whole world.”86 Hughes’ textbook exemplified a common theme of World History textbooks of the era, an absolute faith in the superiority of Western Civilization, but a concerted attention to the non-Western world as a critical field of knowledge that students needed to know and master. Western history received praise throughout the curriculum, and a key idea running throughout Martin and Worley’s work was the concept of cultural indebtedness. The course sought to trace the origins of the contemporary United States, so the narrative of history followed people, events, and movements that contributed to ‘our’ heritage. In the section on the Medieval Era, students were expected to know that “some of the safeguards of our liberty had their origin during the Middle Ages, and that we owe our greatest debt in this connection to England.”87 This is very reminiscent of the Western Civilization course that was, in the late 1940s and 1950s, experiencing its high point in American universities.88 A prominent feature evident in the 1949 curriculum were evaluative statements regarding religion, praising Christianity and denigrating Islam. Students were taught in the first few weeks that: Civilization as we know it, originated in the Near East and spread westward through a series of successful conflicts with opposing forces from the East; that the spread of Western civilization and the Christian religion have been almost simultaneous; that we are obligated to improve our heritage for those generations yet to come.89

History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s  45 A later section on the rise of Islam called for a discussion of the “weaknesses” of “Mohammedanism,” and insisted that the Battle of Tours (also called the Battle of Poitiers) was a “decisive” victory for Christianity in Europe.90 This focus on Christianity echoed statements made by key Texas officials. For instance, the State Board of Education Chairman R.B. Anderson wrote in 1950 that the Board’s primary duty was to produce “sound-thinking, moral, Christian citizens.”91 Though World History in 1949 embraced many of the concepts of the university-level Western Civ course, it provided distinctive attention to non-Western regions. The last six weeks of the course focused especially on colonial empires and independence struggles in the non-Western world.92 Students would learn that European colonization was “carried on for selfish reasons” and that independence movements were fought to “gain equal opportunities” with colonizing nations.93 However, the attention dedicated to the non-Western world was often steeped in negative assumptions and patronizing attitudes toward “Oriental” peoples. Contemporary conflict in China, for instance, was said to be the result of “an Oriental-thinking people trying to adopt Western ideals.”94 Taken together, the extensive curricula and emphasis on the work of R.O. Hughes made it clear that the Texas State Department of Education, renamed the Texas Education Agency (TEA) in 1949, continued to embrace World History in the schools. In fact, World History first officially appeared in Texas state law in 1949, finally replacing the nomenclature of ‘General History,’ which had been out of use by educators for nearly two decades by that point. But the form of World History had changed. Gone was the focus on a problem-centered approach of 1938, replaced with a traditional history that emphasized the rise of the West. Even as the 1949 curriculum advocated for a more traditional World History that embodied similar concepts to the college-level Western Civilization course, criticisms of this approach became more intense. Marshall Hodgson, a pioneer of global history, argued that for most of the human past Europe was simply a “dependent part” of civilization.95 Four years later, past president of the National Council of the Social Studies Edgar B. Wesley wrote that “the idea that the world can be viewed as an expanded Europe is no longer tenable.”96 As one writer put it in The High School Journal, the “world history course had really been an egocentered description of the rise of western civilization to the neglect of non-western cultures.”97 It took until 1961 for the Texas Education Agency to address these criticisms of the World History course. There was not an official curriculum released in 1961, but rather a series of revised standards for accreditation and a list of approved courses.98 In a trend that culminated in state-wide mandated curricula in the 1980s, TEA began to enforce minimum standards that schools had to follow. What had been loose guidelines became increasingly strict requirements. TEA also began basing textbook decisions on the extent to which

46  History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s texts conformed to stated guidelines.99 Content throughout the social studies was supposed to emphasize “citizenship education, appreciation of the American heritage, conservation, and current happenings.”100 For the very first time, World History became a requirement for every high school student in the state of Texas in 1961.101 Despite being only a single page in length, the World History description nevertheless revealed a desire to ensure that non-Western histories received more coverage in the course. The emphasis continued to be on modern history, but the description made it clear that World History should include an overview of the “cultures of India, China, the Fertile Crescent, the classical cultures of the Far East, the Americas (Middle and South America)” in addition to the Western civilizations of Greece and Rome.102 When it came to the modern world, the course description privileged Western topics, but also asked instructors to teach about multiple world civilizations. Teachers were warned of the impossibility of covering everything in detail, and encouraged to cover specific cultures in depth rather than overwhelm students with too much information.103 When it came to the balance between Western and non-Western history demanded by the 1961 accreditation standards, adopted textbooks in Texas from 1962 to 1971 were a mixed bag. Of the five approved textbooks, two still had well over 80% of the total content dedicated to Western history, and two others were at 75%.104 The fifth text, Our Widening World by Ethel Ewing, contained a comparatively small 39% of content dedicated exclusively to Western history, with an eye-popping 56% of the text’s pages on the non-Western world.105 Ewing’s work exemplified a new way of organizing textbook content and focusing on the history of Asia, Africa, South America, and on non-Western peoples more generally. Ewing, an anthropologist from Long Beach State College, used a regional approach to her textbook Our Widening World. Rather than arranging content in a chronological narrative, Ewing organized the book to focus on what she called the seven great societies of the world: Far Eastern, Indian, Moslem, Slavic, Western European, Anglo-American, and LatinAmerican.106 The approach allowed Ewing to dedicate far more space to non-Western societies around the world than previous textbooks. But though non-Western peoples were far more present in Our Widening World than in other contemporary texts, Ewing’s interpretive framework still treated European peoples as the main engine of World History. Content on each of the seven great societies was broken into three sections. The first discussed ancient societies. The second focused on “traditional society before the people of Western European society brought new ideas and techniques and forced the older society to make great changes.”107 Finally, each section concluded with an overview of contemporary struggles. So, despite the greater sensitivity to the non-Western world, European peoples still drove history forward, while other societies merely responded and adapted to European pressures in this narrative. Ewing’s work was an

History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s  47 early example of a trend that became even more pronounced in the 1970s, where textbook authors used regional organization schemes to include additional non-Western history in the classroom. Trends set in motion with the new accreditation standards in 1961 accelerated profoundly with a new curriculum in 1970 entitled Framework for the Social Studies K-12. For one thing, World History was relabeled World History Studies, a name still attached to the course today (though for the sake of consistency I will continue referring to the course as World History). TEA joined World History with World Geography as part of the “World Studies” program, which gave students “a number of different approaches to developing world perspectives.”108 Students after 1970 had a choice of taking either World History Studies or World Geography Studies, but did not have to take both. World History’s brief stint as a mandatory course was over. In the immediate term, students clearly preferred World History Studies, as Joe Gowaskie reported in 1985 that more than 90% of students selected the World History Studies option.109 Numbers from more recent decades paint a different picture, however, demonstrating an astounding growth for World Geography Studies, which has exceeded World History Studies in enrollment every year since 1995 (Figure 2.1).110 400,000

350,000

300,000

250,000

200,000

150,000

100,000

50,000

Year 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

0

World History Studies

US History

World Geography

Figure 2.1  Texas beginning of year student enrollment, 1988–2020.

48  History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s The 1970 curriculum provided few specific details on what was expected of a World History course, but it did stress significant goals. The brief description suggested that the course should cover both Western and non-Western world cultures, but that it should not attempt to do so holistically.111 In fact, the Framework explicitly stated that the course should not be “a general survey of the history of Mankind.”112 This was a major change from the more traditional Western-oriented curriculum of 1949, which created a detailed list of chronological objectives for the course to follow. What is most remarkable about the 1970 Framework was its endorsement of multiple organizational strategies in World History. Teachers could, for instance, organize the course along the lines of Area Studies, moving from region to region in the manner of Ethel Ewing’s Our Widening World.113 Or they could organize content along more global themes as historians like William McNeill and Leften Stavrianos advocated. Finally, teachers could embrace a problem-oriented approach around broad but general themes like interdependence or conflict.114 The Texas Education Agency empowered local school districts and teachers to select the interpretive framework that best fit their local needs. This organizational flexibility resulted in a uniquely creative period for textbooks adopted in Texas in the early 1970s. Textbook author Paul Welty, the Chair of the Asian Studies Program at Northeastern Illinois State College, wrote a book with a regional organization in a way that emphasized the diversity of the human experience. His introduction proclaimed that he wrote “of Asian man, European man, Christian man, the man of the Renaissance, the Frenchman or the Scandinavian, the Russian, and others…Man is not one; he is many.”115 Other authors like William McNeill wrote the first wave of textbooks emphasizing the global interconnectedness of humanity. McNeill argued that “contacts between men of different cultures become the main drive wheel of history.”116 Leften Stavrianos and a group of scholars from Northwestern University created a textbook that blended these two strategies. The book A Global History of Man included a section tracing the global interaction of humanity, but also regional sections encompassing the world’s many peoples.117 Two clear trends emerged in textbooks of the early 1970s. The first was a concerted attempt to provide additional coverage of non-Western territories. In all, the five textbooks adopted by Texas during that decade averaged 51.8% of their pages on the West, with 38% of their pages on non-Western history. Though this is indicative of a long-term trend toward balancing Western with non-Western history, the sharp decrease in Western content in the early 1970s is almost certainly due to the fact that three out of the five approved textbooks utilized a regional rather than a chronological approach, intentionally dedicating a larger amount of space to Asia, Africa, and South America than traditional World History textbooks. The two chronological textbooks of the early 1970s

History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s  49 dedicated 72.5% of their content to the West, far higher than the average of 38% dedicated to the West in regionally organized books. Nevertheless, as Figure 2.2 demonstrates, the dominance of Western history in Texas World History textbooks has been declining since the 1930s, a decline that accelerated rapidly in the 1970s. 100% 90% 80% 70% Average of Western All Page %

60% 50%

Average of Non Western Page %

40% 30% 20%

Average of Global All Page %

10%

1 719 8 19 90 3 -1 20 999 03 -2 01 6

4

19 7

19 7

19 6

2-

9

19 5

19 4

8-

19 3 5-

19 3

19 2

5-

19 3

0

0%

Figure 2.2 Average amount of content in Texas adopted world history textbooks, 1925–2016.

A second notable trend of the early 1970s textbooks was that, for the first time, non-Western peoples were deemed worthy of an ancient history. The two chronologically organized textbooks dedicated an average of 24% of their pre-1500 content to the non-Western world, a far higher proportion than in previous adoption periods. The book Exploring World History, for instance, included several chapters on “India: Where Living Things were Sacred,” “China: Where Outsiders Were Not Wanted,” “Africa: Where Powerful Civilizations Grew,” and “American Indians: First in the New World.”118 The inclusion of pre-1500 C.E. African and pre-Columbian Native American peoples was especially noticeable, since these groups had been virtually invisible in World History textbooks of previous eras (Figure 2.3). An increased attention to non-Western classical history was not a passing trend, either, but a harbinger of things to come. The amount of content dedicated to non-Western History in the pre-1500 C.E. period has increased in all but one adoption period since the 1970s, and the ratio of Western to non-Western history reached parity with the 2016 textbook adoption period. By comparison, the chronological period 1500–1945 has remained much more stubbornly Eurocentric over time. In the most recent adoption period of 2016, the 1500–1945 time period continued to prioritize Western content with an average of 57% of textbook content.

50  History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

Avg Pre-1500 West % Avg Pre-1500 Non West %

1925-1930 1930-1935 1935-1939 1939-1947 1948-1954 1954-1962 1962-1971 1971-1977 1977-1983 1984-1990 1990-1999 1999-2003 2003-2016 2016-2023

Avg Pre-1500 Global %

Figure 2.3 Average Texas world history adopted textbook content, pre-1500, 1925–2016.

That number stood at 58% in the 2003 adoption period, 65% in the 1999 adoption, and at a full 70% in textbooks approved in the 1990s. World History textbook authors have found it much easier to include non-Western historical accounts in the distant past than in the most recent five centuries of world history. Taken together, textbooks approved by the state of Texas in the 1970s creatively applied new strategies to teach the subject of World History. Writing at the high point of decolonization, authors responded to the rising number and influence of newly independent non-Western nations.119 The newer texts attempted to incorporate non-Western territories into their narratives. However, they continued to explicitly assert the superiority of Western culture and norms. Even William McNeill, a key figure in the emergence of academic world history, broadly used an “expansionof-Europe” paradigm as the key to his textbook’s interpretive framework. McNeill later wrote a thoughtful essay in which he regretted his overtly Eurocentric approach in his early days as a world historian.120 So while these new textbooks broke new ground in how they conceptualized World History, they did not eliminate Eurocentrism from the course.

Conclusion The picture that emerges of the development of World History from the 1920s through the late 1970s is one of turbulent change. Curricula published during that period contained a number of interpretive frameworks for the high school World History course. Assumptions of Eurocentrism, nationalism, and presentism were staples of the course throughout, but in other respects, the course was highly adaptable. The remarkable flexibility of World History was, in fact, one of the reasons for its stunning success as it rose from the discredited ashes of General History to become

History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s  51 the second-most influential history course in American schools today. There was no set, fixed definition of what World History could or should be, so the course proved useful to administrators and educators during these decades. Textbooks provided a significant check on the flexibility of the World History course. Teaching to the text was (and remains) a centerpiece of history education, and radical new organizational schemes were only possible if textbooks quickly matched. In the 1930s, when textbook adoption and curriculum planning were separate projects, textbooks remained relatively unchanged even as the Texas State Department of Education issued a problem-centered and progressive curriculum. But by the 1970s, the Texas Education Agency started basing textbook decisions on their adherence to recommended curricula, forcing textbook authors to adhere to the demands of the Texas market more closely. While this chapter told the story of remarkable change and adaptability in World History during its decades of estrangement from professional historians, the next chapter explains how this most plastic of courses became far more rigid and inflexible. The possibilities opened by the dynamic creativity of the 1970s were firmly closed with the proscriptive curriculum standards movement of the 1980s.

Notes 1 For more on the relationship between historians and the secondary schools, see: Robert B. Townsend, History’s Babel: Scholarship, Professionalization, and the Historical Enterprise in the United States, 1880–1950 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013); Ian Tyrrell, Historians in Public: The Practice of American History, 1890–1970 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005). 2 Progressive education is a very broad term with a definition that is debated among historians of education. Herbert Kliebard and Ronald Evans both argue that the best way to think about this is a struggle between different interest groups, whose shifting coalitions have shaped American education in the 20th and 21st centuries. As Kliebard suggests, “the curriculum was (and, for that matter, is) contested terrain. In an important sense, it was the prize for which the various interest groups competed.” Herbert Kliebard, The Struggle for the American Curriculum 1893–1956. Third Edition (New York: Routledge, 2004), 287; See also Ronald W. Evans, The Social Studies Wars: What Should We Teach the Children? (New York: Teachers College Press, 2004). 3 From the 1920s until the late 1940s the organization responsible for state curricula was the Texas State Department of Education. Following passage of the Gilmer-Aiken Law in 1949, it became known as the Texas Education Agency. In the 1920s and into the 1930s there could be several curricula issued each decade. Beginning in the late 1930s, curricula were only issued about once every decade. For a full list of curricula analyzed for this study, see Appendix B. 4 Larry Cuban, How Teachers Taught: Constancy and Change in American Classrooms, 1890–1980 (New York: Longman, 1984).

52  History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s 5 Michael P. Marino, “High School World History Textbooks: An Analysis of Content Focus and Chronological Approaches,” The History Teacher 44, no. 3 (2011): 421–446. Please note that the percentages do not always add up to 100% because in many texts there are pages that are unclassifiable as either Western, non-Western, or global history. For more about this data, see Appendix C. 6 J. Lynn Barnard, “Development of the World History Course,” Historical Outlook 20, no. 8 (1929): 396. 7 For more on the issues of historical professionalization in the interwar period, see Townsend, History’s Babel; Tyrrell, Historians in Public. 8 On ‘traditional’ history, see Evans, The Social Studies Wars, especially Chapter 1. Diane Ravitch echoes this point in “History’s Struggle to Survive in the Schools,” OAH Magazine of History 21, no. 2 (2007): 28–32. Ravitch is also a very prominent critic of the social studies more broadly. See Ravitch, “A Brief History of the Social studies,” in Where Did the Social Studies Go Wrong? eds. James Leming, Lucien Ellington, and Kathleen Porter (Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, 2003), 1–5. 9 Andrew C. McLaughlin, The Study of History in Schools: A Report to the American Historical Association by the Committee of Seven (American Historical Association, 1898). Accessed August 17, 2020. https://www. historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/historicalarchives/the-study-of-history-in-schools/four-years-course-consisting-of-fourblocks-or-periods 10 McLaughlin, The Study of History in the Schools, See chapter entitled: “Four Years’ Course, Consisting of Four Blocks or Periods.” 11 As historian Ronald Evans puts it: “Traditional history, it seemed, gave too little attention to the insistent present.” The Social Studies Wars, 18. 12 General History has only been the subject of a small amount of scholarly attention. See Ross Dunn, “World History Education Around the World,” Forthcoming Manuscript; Deborah Smith Johnston, “Rethinking World History: Conceptual Frameworks for the World History Survey” (PhD Dissertation, Northeastern University, 2003); Deborah Smith Johnston, “World History Education,” in Palgrave Advances in World History, ed. Marnie Hughes-Warrington, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 256– 278; Sunjoo Kang, “The West and Ignore the Rest: Conceptualizations of World History in American High School Textbooks, 1875–1934” (PhD Dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, 2000); Patrick Manning, Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), esp. Chapter 2. 13 Allardyce, “Toward World History: American Historians and the Coming of the World History Course,” Journal of World History 1, no. 1 (1990): 23–76; Manning, Navigating World History. 14 McLaughlin, The Study of History in the Schools. 15 Evans argues that the report “came to be seen as the definitive statement on traditional history by both proponents and critics.” The Social Studies Wars, 11. One national study found that 85% of high schools offered Ancient History, 80% offered Medieval and Modern History, 64% offered English History, and 86% offered American History. Hazel Hertzberg, Social Studies Reform 1880–1980 (Boulder, CO: Social Science Education Consortium, 1981), 16. 16 The state of Texas used a classification scheme for High Schools of different sizes. A first-class rated school had a minimum of three teachers, a school term of at least eight months, a course of study requiring at least 18 units of work for graduation, class periods of 35–40 minutes per session, lab

History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s  53







apparatus sufficient to offer at least three units of High School science, and adequate library and building facilities. Texas High Schools: Classification and State Aid (State Department of Education Bulletin no. 37, December, 1914). 4. 17 F.M. Bralley and T.H. Shelby, Course of Study for the Public Schools (State Department of Education Bulletin no. 18, September 1912). 18 W.F. Doughty, “Manual and Course of Study for the Public Schools of Texas,” State Department of Education Bulletin no. 46 (1915), 78. 19 Annie Webb Blanton and R.L. Ragsdale, “Texas High Schools: History and the Social Sciences,” The Department of Education Bulletin no. 124 (October 1920), 12. 20 For more on the Texas High School classification system, see “Texas High Schools: Classification and State Aid.” 21 Evans argues that the traditional history program fell out of favor as early as 1913 within the National Education Association. Evans, The Social Studies Wars, 22. Townsend argues that this was a result of specialization and professionalization in the historical discipline, which “pushed the different areas of history work apart.” Townsend, History’s Babel, 186. 22 E. Wayne Ross, The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities Revised Edition (Albany: SUNY Press, 2001), 24. 23 Arthur William Dunn, The Social Studies in Secondary Education (Washington: Government Printer, 1916), 9. 24 Ibid, 30. 25 Ibid, 13. 26 Ross Finney, “Tentative Report of the Committee of the American Socio­ logical Society on the Teaching of Sociology in the Grade and High Schools of America,” The School Review 28, no. 4 (1920): 260. 27 Joseph Schafer, “Supplement: A Report of Progress: Decisions Reached by the Committee on History and Education for Citizenship in the Schools, at Its Recent Meeting in Washington,” Historical Outlook 10, no. 6 (1919): 350. 28 Albert Shiels, “The Social Studies in Development,” Teachers College Record 23, no. 1 (1922): 135. 29 Evans, The Social Studies Wars, 36–37. 30 Shiels, “The Social Studies in Development,” 135. 31 Allardyce, “Toward World History,” 48. Allardyce continues: “if, therefore, the passing of General History marked the rise of AHA influence in secondary education, this second coming of world history was a sign of its decline.” 50. 32 Robert Orril and Linn Shapiro, “From Bold Beginnings to an Uncertain Future: The Discipline of History and History Education,” American Historical Review 110, no. 3 (2005): 748. 33 Anna Harder, “Trends in the Teaching of World History in the Secondary Schools” (Master’s Thesis, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1928), 22. 34 Cody Ewert, Making Schools American: Nationalism and the Origin of Modern Educational Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022), Chapter 5. 35 Blanton and Ragsdale, “Texas High Schools: History and the Social Sciences,” 8. 36 Ibid, 9. 37 Ibid, 21. 38 A course of study implies a holistic program for multiple years of education. 39 For a full list of state-issued curricula, see Appendix B. I am counting the 1961 guidelines for accreditation as well as the ‘streamlined’ curricula

54  History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s











released in 2018, though an argument could be made that they were not completely new guidelines. The state launched a curricular revision cycle in 2021, which will soon bring the number to ten. 40 The state created multiple plans for two-, three-, and four-year high schools. Several options allowed schools to offer either Modern History or World History. World History was never the first recommendation, nor was it ever recommended without an option for a different course, but this is nevertheless an official recommendation signifying the legitimacy of the course. S.M.N. Marrs, Course of Study: Texas High Schools (Texas: State Depart­ ment of Education Bulletin no. 196, August 1925), 11–15. 41 Marrs, “Course of Study: Texas High Schools,” 43. 42 See Appendix A for the full list of approved textbooks. 43 Marrs, “Texas High Schools: Course of Studies,” 43. 44 Non-Western history topics accounted for an average of only 6.3% of textbook content. These numbers and textbook figures throughout the Chapter are taken from a numerical content analysis of textbooks undertaken for this project. For more details on methodology, see Appendix C. 45 For a fascinating look at how immigration transformed the ‘history wars’ in textbooks of the 1920s, see Jonathan Zimmerman, “‘Each Race Could Have Its Heroes Sung’: Ethnicity and the History Wars in the 1920s,” The Journal of American History 87, no. 1 (2000): 92–111. 46 Marrs, “Texas High Schools: Course of Studies,” 42. 47 James Harvey Robinson, Emma Smith Peters, and James Henry Breasted, Our World Today and Yesterday: A History of Modern Civilization (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1924), iii. 48 Ibid, 52. 49 S.M.N. Marrs, Texas High Schools: The Teaching of History and Other Social Subjects (Austin, TX: State Department of Education Bulletin no. 260, September 1929), 15. 50 Ibid, 16. 51 Katherine Bradford Henderson, The Teaching of History and Other Social Subjects (Austin, TX: State Department of Education Bulletin no. 308, September 1932), 82. 52 J. Salwyn Schapiro and Richard Morris, Civilization in Europe: Part I. Ancient and Medieval Times. Part II: Modern Times in Europe (Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press, 1931), 544. 53 W.A. Stigler, Handbook for Curriculum Study (Austin, TX: State Department of Education Bulletin no. 336, September 1934), 12. 54 For more on Harold Rugg, see Ronald W. Evans, This Happened in America: Harold Rugg and the Censure of Social Studies (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2007). 55 Christine Woyshner, Joseph Watras, and Margaret Crocco suggest that Rugg’s series of textbooks were the most popular ever published in the United States. Social Education in the Twentieth Century: Curriculum and Context for Citizenship (New York: Peter Lang Publishers, 2004), 37. 56 Joseph Moreau, Schoolbook Nation: Conflicts over American History Textbooks from the Civil War to the Present (Ann Arbor, Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2003), 220. 57 Evans, The Social Studies Wars, 62–63. 58 Stigler, “Handbook for Curriculum Study,” 14. 59 Ibid, Ibidem. 60 Stigler, “Handbook for Curriculum Study,” 3. 61 W.A. Stigler, Teaching social studies in Junior and Senior High Schools of Texas (State Department of Education Bulletin no. 392, November 1938).

History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s  55









62 Ibid, ibidem. 63 Ibid, 218. 64 Ibid, ibidem. 65 Ibid, 13. 66 The ‘alternate’ program provided space for World History in the ninth grade. The general design, methods, and content were very similar to the original program. Stigler, “Teaching Social studies in Junior and Senior High Schools of Texas,” 13, 127. 67 Ibid, 75. 68 Ibid, 76. 69 Stigler, “Teaching Social studies in Junior and Senior High Schools of Texas,” 86. 70 The two books without any content on the non-Western world before 1500 were R.O. Hughes, The Making of Today’s World (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1935); Edwin Pahlow, Man’s Great Adventure, Revised Edition (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1938). Those with a mere 2% of their content dedicated to the non-Western world included Carl Becker and Frederic Duncalf, Story of Civilization (New York: Silver Burdett Company, 1938); Albert Heckel and James Sigman, On the Road to Civilization (Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1937). 71 Carlton Hayes, Parker Moon, and John Wayland, World History (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1935). 72 Parker, Moon, and Wayland, World History, v. 73 H.A. Glass, Free Textbook Law and Regulations List of Current-Adoption Textbooks 1950–1951 (Texas: Texas Education Agency Bulletin no. 510, 1951), 4. 74 “Thirtieth Biennial Report,” State Department of Education Bulletin no. 393, December, 1938, 13. 75 The teacher shortage persisted after the war, “creating an acute situation” that would be “evident for years to come” even after the war was over. “Thirty-Fourth Biennial Report,” State Department of Education Bulletin no. 473 (1946), 14. 76 The Director of Curriculum and Director of Supervision, respectively. A.B. Martin and Gordon Worley, Social Studies in the Secondary Schools (Austin, TX: State Department of Education Bulletin no. 503, 1949), 4. 77 By comparison, World History guidelines in 1929 were 6 pages long, and in 1938, 11 pages. This is also far more content than subsequent curricula devoted to World History, as those issued in 1961 and 1970 were only a page in length. For a full list of Texas curricula regarding World History, see Appendix B. 78 Martin and Worley, “Social Studies in the Secondary Schools,” 10–11. 79 Ibid, 11. 80 Martin and Worley, “Social Studies in the Secondary Schools,” 10. 81 Ibid, 86. 82 Ibid, 87–127. 83 Hughes, The Making of Today’s World, 1939. 84 R.O. Hughes, “Implications of the Commission on the Social studies of the American Historical Association,” Social studies 25, no. 6 (1934): 286. 85 Edith West, Improving the Teaching of World History, Twentieth Yearbook of the National Council for the Social studies (Menasha, WI: George Banta Publishing Company, 1949). 86 R.O. Hughes, The Making of Today’s World (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1947), iii. 87 Martin and Worley, “Social studies in the Secondary Schools,” 111.

56  History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s 88 See Allardyce, “The Rise and Fall of the Western Civilization Course;” William McNeill et al., “Beyond Western Civilization: Rebuilding the Survey,” The History Teacher 10, no. 4 (1977): 509–548; Daniel Segal, “‘Western Civ’ and the Staging of History in American Higher Education,” The American Historical Review 105, no. 3 (2000): 770–805. 89 Ibid, 94. 90 Ibid, 103. 91 “Thirty-Sixth Biennial Report 1948–1949 and 1949–1950,” Texas Education Agency Bulletin no. 511 (1950), viii. 92 Contemporary textbooks often do the same thing: marginalize the non-West from the chronological period 1500–1945, and then talk about them in the context of modern problems. Michael Marino and Jane Bolgatz, “Weaving a Fabric of World History? An Analysis of U.S. State High School World History Standards,” Theory and Research in Social Education 38, no. 3 (2010): 366–394. 93 Martin and Worley, “Social studies in the Secondary Schools,” 131. 94 Ibid, 127. 95 Marshall Hodgdson, “World History and a World Outlook,” Social Studies 35, no. 7 (1944), 298. 96 Edgar B. Wesley, “The Potentialities of World History in a World Society,” in Improving the Teaching of World History, ed. Edith West (Menasha, WI: George Banta Publishing Company, 1949), 3. 97 Harris Dante, “What’s Ahead for the World History Course,” The High School Journal 45, no. 6 (1962): 256. 98 “Principles and Standards for Accrediting Elementary and Secondary Schools and Description of Approved Courses Grades 7–12,” Texas Education Agency Bulletin 615, 1961. 99 Ibid, 4. 100 Ibid, 234. 101 “Principles and Standards for Accrediting Elementary and Secondary Schools,” 42. 102 Ibid, 244. 103 Ibid, ibidem. 104 Anatole Mazour and John Peoples, Men and Nations: A World History (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1961); A. Wesley Roehm et al., The Record of Mankind. Second Edition (Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1961). Two textbooks at 75%: Arthur Boak et al., The History of Our World (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961); Frederic Lane, Eric Goldman, and Erling Hunt, The World’s History Revised Edition (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1954). 105 Ethel Ewing, Our Widening World Second Edition (New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1961). Please note that the percentages do not add up to 100 since some pages are unclassifiable as Western, non-Western, or global. 106 Ewing, Our Widening World, 3. 107 Ewing, Our Widening World, 3. 108 Texas Education Agency, Framework for the Social Studies: Grades K-12 (Austin: Texas Education Agency, 1970), 18. 109 Joe Gowaskie, “The Teaching of World History: A Status Report,” The History Teacher 18, no. 3 (1985): 365. 110 The Texas Education Agency collects beginning and end of year student enrollment numbers. The most recent few years are available on the agency’s website. The records going back to 1988 were made available following a

History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s  57 Public Information Request. Texas Education Agency, “Student Enrollment Reports,” Texas Education Agency Website, Accessed September 24, 2020. https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/adhocrpt/adste.html 111 Texas Education Agency, Framework for the Social Studies, 18. 112 Texas Education Agency, Framework for the Social Studies, 19. 113 The textbook Story of Nations also attempted an organization in this manner. Story of Nations was first published in the 1930s, but was approved by the state of Texas for the first time in the 1940s. Lester Rogers, Fay Adams, Walker Brown, Story of Nations (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1947); Ethel Ewing, Our Widening World Second Edition (New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1961). 114 Texas Education Agency, Framework for the Social Studies, 19. 115 Paul Welty, Man’s Cultural Heritage: A World History. Revised Edition (Philadelphia: J.P. Lippincott Company, 1969), vi. 116 William H. McNeill, The Ecumene: Story of Humanity (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1973), v. 117 Leften Stavrianos et al., A Global History of Man (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1970). 118 Sol Holt and John R. O’Connor, Exploring World History (New York: Globe Book Company, 1969) Table of Contents. 119 For more on decolonization, see Dane Kennedy, Decolonization: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). 120 William McNeill, “The Rise of the West after Twenty-Five Years,” Journal of World History 1 (1990): 1–21. See also Patrick Manning’s assessment of McNeill in Manning, Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 52–54.

Bibliography Allardyce, Gilbert. “The Rise and Fall of the Western Civilization Course.” The American Historical Review 87, no. 3 (1982): 695–725. ———. “Toward World History: American Historians and the Coming of the World History Course.” Journal of World History 1, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 23–76. Barnard, J. Lynn. “Development of the World History Course.” The Historical Outlook 20, no. 8 (1929): 395–96. Becker, Carl, and Frederic Duncalf. Story of Civilization. New York: Silver Burdett Company, 1938. Blanton, Annie Webb, and R.L. Ragsdale. Texas High Schools: History and the Social Sciences. Texas: State Department of Education Bulletin 46 (1920). Boak, Arthur, Preston Slosson, Howard Anderson, and Hall Bartlett. The History of Our World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961. Bralley, F.M., and T.H. Shelby. Course of Study for the Public Schools. Texas: State Department of Education Bulletin 18 (1912). Cuban, Larry. How Teachers Taught: Constancy and Change in American Classrooms, 1890–1980. New York: Longman, 1984. Dante, Harris L. “What’s Ahead for the World History Course.” The High School Journal 45, no. 6 (1962): 254–60. Doughty, W.F. Manual and Course of Study for the Public Schools of Texas. Texas: State Department of Education Bulletin 46 (1915).

58  History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s Dunn, Arthur William. The Social Studies in Secondary Education: Report of the Committee on the Reorganization of Secondary Education of the National Education Association. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1916. Dunn, Ross. “World History Education Around the World.” Unpublished Manuscript, (Forthcoming). Evans, Ronald W. The Social Studies Wars: What Should We Teach the Children? New York: Teachers College Press, 2004. ———. This Happened in America: Harold Rugg and the Censure of Social Studies. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2007. Ewert, Cody. Making Schools American: Nationalism and the Origin of Modern Educational Politics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022. Ewing, Ethel. Our Widening World. Second Edition. New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1961. Finney, Ross L. “Tentative Report of the Committee of the American Sociological Society on the Teaching of Sociology in the Grade and High Schools of America.” The School Review 28, no. 4 (1920): 255–62. Gowaskie, Joe. “The Teaching of World History: A Status Report.” The History Teacher 18, no. 3 (May 1985): 385–95. Harder, Anna. “Trends in the Teaching of World History in the Secondary Schools.” Master of Arts in Education, University of Southern California, 1928. Hayes, Carlton, Parker Thomas Moon, and John Wayland. World History. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1935. Heckel, Albert Kerr, and James G. Sigman. On the Road to Civilization. Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1937. Henderson, Katherine Bradford. The Teaching of History and Other Social Subjects. Austin, TX: State Department of Education, 1932. Hodgson, Marshall. “World History and a World Outlook.” Social Studies 35, no. 7 (1944): 297–301. Holt, Sol, and John R. O’Connor. Exploring World History. New York: Globe Book Company, 1969. Hughes, R.O. “Implications of the Report of the Commission on the Social Studies of the American Historical Association.” Social Studies 25, no. 6 (1934): 285–88. ———. The Making of Today’s World. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1935. ———. The Making of Today’s World. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1947. Hughes-Warrington, Marnie, ed. Palgrave Advances in World Histories. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2005. Johnston, Deborah Smith. “Rethinking World History: Conceptual Frameworks for the World History Survey.” PhD, Northeastern University, 2003. Kang, Sunjoo. “The West and Ignore the Rest: Conceptualizations of World History in American High School Textbooks, 1875–1934.” Ph.D., Indiana University, 2000. Kennedy, Dane. Decolonization: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Kliebard, Herbert. The Struggle for the American Curriculum 1893–1958. New York: Routledge, 1995. Lane, Frederic C., Eric F. Goldman, and Erling M. Hunt. The World’s History. Revised Edition. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1954.

History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s  59 Leming, James, Lucien Ellington, and Kathleen Porter. Where Did the Social Studies Go Wrong? Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, 2003. Manning, Patrick. Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Marino, Michael, and Jane Bolgatz. “Weaving a Fabric of World History? Analysis of U.S. State High School World History Standards.” Theory and Research in Social Education 38, no. 3 (2010): 366–94. Marino, Michael P. “High School World History Textbooks: An Analysis of Content Focus and Chronological Approaches.” The History Teacher 44, no. 3 (2011): 421–46. Marrs, S.M.N. Texas High Schools: The Teaching of History and Other Social Subjects. Texas: State Department of Education Bulletin 260 (1929). ———. Course of Study: Texas High Schools. Texas: State Department of Education Bulletin 196 (1925). Martin, A.B., and Gordon Worley. Social Studies in the Secondary Schools. Texas: State Department of Education Bulletin 503 (1949). Mazour, Anatole G., and John M. Peoples. Men and Nations: A World History. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World Inc., 1961. McLaughlin, Andrew C. The Study of History in Schools. American Historical Association, 1898. https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/ aha-history-and-archives/historical-archives/the-study-of-history-in-schools McNeill, William. “The Rise of the West after Twenty-Five Years.” Journal of World History 1, no. 1 (1990): 1–21. McNeill, William H. The Ecumene: Story of Humanity. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1973. McNeill, William, Lewis W. Spitz, Giles Constable, Frederic L. Cheyette, John Anthony Scott, Paul H. Tedesco, and Richard E. Sullivan. “Beyond Western Civilization: Rebuilding the Survey.” The History Teacher 10, no. 4 (1977): 509–48. Moreau, Joseph. Schoolbook Nation: Conflicts Over American History Textbooks from the Civil War to the Present. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2003. Pahlow, Edwin W. Man’s Great Adventure. Revised Edition. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1938. Robert Orril and Linn Shapiro. “From Bold Beginnings to an Uncertain Future: The Discipline of History and History Education.” American Historical Review 110, no. 3 (June 2005): 727–51. Robinson, James Harvey, Emma Peters Smith, and James Henry Breasted. Our World Today and Yesterday: A History of Modern Civilization. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1924. Roehm, A. Wesley, Morris R. Buske, Hutton Webster, and Edgar B. Wesley. The Record of Mankind. Second Edition. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1961. Ross, E. Wayne, ed. The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities. Revised Edition. Albany: SUNY Press, 2001. Schafer, Joseph. “Supplement: A Report of Progress: Decisions Reached By the Committee on History and Education for Citizenship in the Schools, at Its Recent Meeting in Washington.” Historical Outlook 10, no. 6 (1919): 349–51.

60  History’s Orphan, 1920s–1970s Schapiro, J. Salwyn, and Richard B. Morris. Civilization in Europe: Part I. Ancient and Medieval Times. Part II. Modern Times in Europe. Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press, 1931. Segal, Daniel. “‘Western Civ’ and the Staging of History in American Higher Education.” The American Historical Review 105, no. 3 (2000): 770–805. Shiels, Albert. “The Social Studies in Development.” Teachers College Record 23, no. 1 (1922): 126–45. Stavrianos, Leften, Loretta Kreider Andrews, John R. McLane, Frank Safford, and James E. Sheridan. A Global History of Man. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1970. Stigler, W.A. Handbook for Curriculum Study. Texas: State Department of Education Bulletin 336 (1934). ———. Teaching Social Studies in Junior and Senior High Schools of Texas. Texas: State Department of Education Bulletin 392 (1938). “Student Enrollment Reports.” Texas Education Agency, 2020 1988. Website, Accessed June 24, 2020, https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/adhocrpt/adste.html Texas Education Agency. “Principles and Standards for Accrediting Elementary and Secondary Schools and Description of Approved Courses Grades 7–12.” Texas Education Agency Bulletin 615 (1961). ———. “Framework for the Social Studies Grades K-12,” 1970. Texas Education Agency, Division of Curriculum Development. “Framework for the Social Studies: Kindergarten-Grade 12,” 1980. “Texas High Schools: Classification and State Aid.” Texas State Department of Education Bulletin 37 (1914). “Thirtieth Biennial Report.” Texas State Department of Education Bulletin 473 (1946). “Thirty-Sixth Biennial Report for 1948–1949 and 1949–1950.” Texas Education Agency Bulletin 511 (1950). Townsend, Robert B. History’s Babel: Scholarship, Professionalization, and the Historical Enterprise in the United States, 1880–1940. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013. Tyrrell, Ian. Historians in Public: The Practice of American History, 1890–1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Welty, Paul. Man’s Cultural Heritage: A World History. Revised. Philadelphia: J.P. Lippincott Company, 1969. West, Edith, ed. Improving the Teaching of World History. Menasha, WI: George Banta Publishing Company, 1949. Christine Woyshner, Joseph Watras, and Margaret Crocco. Social Education in the Twentieth Century: Curriculum and Context for Citizenship. New York: Peter Lang Publishers, 2004. Zimmerman, Jonathan. “‘Each “Race” Could Have Its Heroes Sung’: Ethnicity and the History Wars in the 1920s.” The Journal of American History 87, no. 1 (2000): 92–111.

3 Standardizing the World, 1980–Present

After a time of experimentation in the 1960s and 1970s, the pendulum of change swung decisively toward conservative traditionalists in American education during the 1980s. Traditionalists were concerned with what they perceived to be a chaotic education system with little accountability, a system that was falling behind international competition.1 On the national level, the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 ushered in calls for widespread educational change, resulting in a push across the United States to create and implement more rigorous educational standards. This chapter highlights the significant impact of the standards movement on the subject of high school World History in Texas.2 An exploration of the national context of the standards movement will help set the scene for the Texas case. In August of 1981, Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Education, T.H. Bell, created the National Commission on Education in Excellence with a mission to “define the problems afflicting American education.”3 The report of the Commission, entitled A Nation at Risk, came out two years later and painted a dire portrait of education in the United States. A Nation at Risk suggested that American education was falling behind, and that the foundations of education in America were being “eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity.”4 The solution, according to the report, was for schools, colleges, and universities to adopt more rigorous educational standards that could be monitored with tests measuring achievement.5 Historian Linda Symcox persuasively argues that the report misrepresented data to overly dramatize the perceived decline in education, but A Nation at Risk nevertheless proved enormously influential across the United States.6 The standards movement quickly caught on across the country. According to a Texas report from the time, by November of 1983, at least 42 states had initiated plans for curriculum reform.7 In the 1980s and early 1990s, advocates of standards embraced the discipline of history as an antidote to what they saw as the overly progressive, permissive, and problematic social studies. In 1987, a new History-Social Science Framework for history teaching in California DOI: 10.4324/9781003323785-3

62  Standardizing the World, 1980–Present proved particularly influential. Charlotte Crabtree and Diane Ravitch spearheaded this effort, which emphasized chronological history.8 Two years later, the Bradley Commission on History in Schools called for a revitalization of the discipline of history. Writing for the Commission, Kenneth and Barbara Jackson argued that the emphasis on social studies education during the 1960s and 1970s led to the “balkanization” of history education, in which “student interest” rather than “any coherent pattern of essential knowledge” permeated the curriculum.9 The Com­ mission called for more history in grades 6–12, with an emphasis on American History, Western Civilization, and World History.10 Standards advocates did not agree on the best approach for the World History course, causing tension between those who defended a Westernoriented approach to the subject and those who wanted a more global approach. Politicians like California’s Bill Honig, who ushered in the influential Framework in 1987, believed that the “Western tradition, liberal education, and democratic values” should be the focal point of History instruction in schools. While utilizing inclusive language, the new conservative movement privileged a Eurocentric viewpoint.11 But historians and educators, too, were divided on this question. Diane Ravitch noted that when the World History course focused on Western Civilization, it was “unified by attention to the evolution of democratic political institutions and ideas,” but when it focused on a more global approach it lost that central underlying theme in favor of providing equal treatment to all major regions of the world.12 The creation of the World History Association (WHA) in 1982 signalled yet another entrant into the standards debate. Inspired especially by the work of William McNeill, the WHA set out to quickly make an impact on K-12 teaching throughout the United States. WHA president Ross Dunn noted in 1984 that “most important of all, the WHA will work to strengthen cooperation between college and K-12 teachers in advancing world history teaching and curricular development in the public schools.”13 Critically, the WHA rejected both the traditional Eurocentric approach to World History and also the regional approach that gained traction in the 1960s and 1970s.14 Instead, they advocated for a global approach that emphasized human interaction and connections over time. The WHA seemingly had propitious timing, as World History began to rapidly grow in the American curriculum, with more and more states requiring the course for high school graduation.15 Optimism for standards continued to grow in the early 1990s, when Lynne Cheney, then chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), funded the National Center for History in the Schools in 1988, and provided further funding for The National History Standards Project in 1992.16 Led by Charlotte Crabtree and Gary Nash at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), the project brought together a large

Standardizing the World, 1980–Present  63 group of educators, historians, and professional societies to produce the first set of national standards in U.S. history.17 The end result was an important national effort at history, one that Lynne Cheney and conservative critics, despite their earlier support, fiercely criticized as a liberal assault on the traditional values of history.18 The criticism attracted widespread media attention which reached a crescendo in 1994 and 1995. Eventually, the U.S. Senate condemned the standards by an overwhelming margin of 99–1.19 Confronted with social historians of American history who incorporated narratives of marginalized peoples, and professional world historians who de-emphasized both Eurocentrism and the nation-state, the discipline of history proved to be deeply troublesome for the conservative traditionalists of the 80s and 90s. The public debate over the National History Standards centered on American history, but one of the key ruptures within the deliberations occurred over disagreements regarding World History. The American Historical Association (AHA) lobbied for a global approach in the National Standards rather than a Western orientation. At one point, the AHA threatened to abandon the entire project, which would have crippled the legitimacy of the resulting standards. The AHA got their way when it came to World History, but this was one of the biggest sore spots within the National History Project, and one of the root causes of the bitter attacks launched against the National Standards by conservatives.20 The failure of the National History Project sharply increased conservative distrust of professional historians, and of the power of history to provide the sort of patriotic education long advocated by traditionalists, but it has not reduced the power of standards. Fritz Fischer argues that battles over history in the 1990s “made history into a pariah discipline, the third rail of educational reform…In consequence, history as a subject has failed to connect with the world of educational reform in the schools since the turn of the millennium.”21 Standards are now entrenched in public schools across the country. Often short documents, state standards have a dramatic impact on what is taught and tested in the classroom. By design, standards reduce local control over education. In Texas, that power privileges elected officials with little expert knowledge. Importantly, though, a variety of actors play a role in the process, often blunting the impact of politicians with axes to grind. An analysis of state standards and a numerical content analysis of textbooks adopted in Texas since the 1980s reveals that publishers, textbook authors, and educators were also critical actors in the creation and implementation of standards. Stories about controversial and overtly political state standards dominate the headlines, but the story of how standards influence the teaching of World History in Texas is far more complex and interesting.

64  Standardizing the World, 1980–Present

Legislating Essentials: House Bills 246 and 72 Standards did not arrive overnight. There was, rather, a gradual buildup to the passage of a state-controlled curriculum in Texas. Chapter 2 showed that the Texas Education Agency (TEA) began more carefully basing their textbook adoption decisions on state-recommended curriculum in the 1950s, and the Texas legislature passed new graduation requirements in 1961. But the 1970s Framework for the Social Studies backed away from proscriptive requirements and allowed local school districts a significant amount of freedom. Over the next ten years, the situation changed rapidly as the increasingly conservative state legislature adopted a more interventionist approach to the curriculum. In the 1970s, the Texas legislature passed a series of changes to state law mandating the teaching of what they called “essential curriculum elements.” These were the immediate precursor to the more formal standards passed in 1984. The list of twelve elements included such items as “intelligent patriotism,” “kindness to birds and animals,” and “the danger of crime and narcotics.”22 Though it was a requirement that these subjects be taught in some manner, the legislature did not mandate specific content to meet the requirements. School districts and teachers continued to have wide latitude over how to teach course content. An enduring new mandate was a requirement to teach “the essentials and benefits of Free Enterprise,” a term for capitalism preferred by many conservatives.23 History was expected to heavily emphasize this requirement, which has appeared in every curriculum since the 1980s.24 In a separate document, the Texas Education Agency listed specific subgoals and objectives that could accompany the new requirement.25 According to TEA, graduating students should “support the role of profit in the American market system,” “believe in the right of individuals to acquire, use, and dispose of property,” and “support freedom of choice in  the market place.”26 In other words, embedded within state law was a mandate that the social studies must not only teach students how capitalism works, but demonstrate that capitalism showered them with benefits. Despite the increasing level of conservative legislative mandates on the curriculum, the 1980 Framework also included the ‘special curriculum concern’ of multiculturalism. The Framework mandated that the curricula “stress the contributions of individuals from many groups to our national development,” as well as provide opportunities to understand the “great variety of cultures in the world.”27 Over the past century, other Texas World History curricula have recognized the contributions of numerous peoples to the history of the United States and the world, but the 1980 Framework’s appreciation of multiculturalism remains unique.

Standardizing the World, 1980–Present  65 Despite the new mandates from the Texas legislature, the description of the World History course remained nearly identical to the 1970 Framework. Teachers could choose multiple options when organizing the course, and were encouraged not to try and squeeze the whole history of everything into a single year.28 Textbooks adopted from 1977–1983 exhibited a continued diversity of approaches as well.29 But all of this changed quickly with the coming of House Bill (H.B.) 246. Responding to concerns about the inadequacy of student performance and an overcrowded curriculum, the Texas legislature passed H.B. 246 in May of 1981, moving the state toward a standards-based approach to education.30 The general idea was to get back to basics and demand additional accountability in public schooling. From this point on, the Texas Education Agency created detailed lists of minimum “essential elements” that school districts had to follow or risk losing their accreditation. Textbook decisions were tied to how well a given text matched the essential elements.31 The bill centralized control over the curriculum into the hands of the State Board of Education (SBOE) and the Texas Education Agency (TEA). It took time to create the new standards. The SBOE convened groups of policymakers, educators, and members of the public in a series of regional ‘cluster’ groups across Texas.32 There were no requirements for content expertise in these clusters. By placing so much power in the hands of the SBOE, an elected group with no required professional qualifications, the essential elements became highly politicized, largely ignorant of and resistant to the burgeoning field of world history in academia.33 As this process unfolded, and in reaction to A Nation at Risk, Texas appointed another committee under the leadership of billionaire and future presidential candidate Ross Perot to more fully investigate education. Perot’s recommendations resulted in House Bill 72, another sweeping set of policy changes. The most controversial aspect of H.B. 72 was a ‘pass-to-play’ policy for student athletes, but the bill had other significant ramifications. On Perot’s recommendation, the SBOE briefly became an appointed, rather than elected, position.34 The bill also provided for enhanced testing of student learning, and reinforced provisions first passed by H.B. 246 regarding the essential curriculum elements.35 Even though the bills passed at separate times, implementation of many provisions of each bill occurred at the same time, leading to confusion around which bill was which.36 Both bills supported rigorous, subject-based, and measurable essential elements as a focal point for educational quality. By 1984, the SBOE approved the first formal Essential Elements with the goal of implementation in Texas schools during the 1985–1986 school year.37 The secondary school curriculum (grades 7–12) contained a list of values and skills for citizenship along with content requirements for each subject. There were four of these core elements, including respect for self and others, democratic beliefs and personal responsibility,

66  Standardizing the World, 1980–Present support for the American economic system, and the application of social studies skills.38 The third value element was a continuation of the requirements of the late 1970s to tout the virtues of free enterprise. The new standards significantly changed the direction of the World History course in Texas. All students had to take either World History or World Geography in the tenth grade.39 In addition to the core social studies values for citizenship, the new curriculum listed five essential elements for World History that included coverage of early civilizations, Western civilization, developments in ‘other’ regions, geographic influences on world history, and the events of the 20th century.40 Three features of the 1984 Essential Elements stand out. First, the new elements sounded the death knell of the period of experimentation in textbook organization of the 1960s and 1970s. Secondly, the new curriculum mandated a fullthroated defense of capitalism. And finally, the new curriculum explicitly and fundamentally privileged Western civilization over the rest of the world. Within the new curriculum were statements suggesting that teachers and school districts could rearrange elements along thematic lines.41 The chronological structure of many of the elements, however, made a regional or thematic organization to World History impractical. There have been no adopted textbooks taking a fully regional approach at all since 1990. Textbooks of the last few decades typically have a hybrid regional/chronological approach. Texts move chronologically forward, but individual sections or chapters frequently take a region-by-region approach to content.42 Approved textbooks have been far more homogenous in organization, indicating that state standards have significantly diminished the creativity that was a feature of textbooks in the 1960s and 1970s.43 The second notable feature of the 1984 Essential Elements was their strong pro-capitalist and anti-communist stances. More than 15% of the total sub-elements in all categories referenced one of these two topics.44 Students would have the opportunity to, among other things, “explain the positive aspects and effects of American capitalism upon the world,” and “explain the Soviet-stated goal of world communism and the growth of Soviet influence and ideology around the globe.”45 The strongly procapitalist stance remains an important aspect of the World History curriculum in Texas today. Thirdly, the 1984 curriculum quite explicitly entrenched a ‘West and the rest’ approach to World History that has shaped the course ever since. Students were expected to spend a great deal of time studying Western History, with a whopping nine sub-elements embedded in the Essential Elements. These sub-elements reflected a traditional Western chronology of ancient, medieval, and modern history. The study of ‘other regions,’ which included the entire rest of the planet and the majority of humanity, resulted in less than half as many sub-element requirements.46 Africa, the

Standardizing the World, 1980–Present  67 Middle East, and all of Latin America, for instance, received only a single sub-element.47 Western history’s privileged position in the new Essential Elements was evident in ways both big and small, and notably shaped subsequent textbook content. The SBOE adopted new textbooks in 1984 as they were developing the Essential Elements.48 In the nearly century-long history of World History textbook adoption in Texas, the 1984–1990 adoption period is the only example where total content dedicated to Western history increased.49 Part of this, no doubt, is due to the paucity of regionally organized books, which for the previous two adoption periods intentionally provided enhanced coverage of non-Western areas. But this cannot explain all of the increased attention to the West. Even among chronologically organized books, coverage of Western topics in the 1500–1945 period jumped 14% from the 1977 to the 1984 adoption period. That the first Essential Elements, and textbooks designed with the new standards in mind, privileged Western history should not be that surprising. Indeed, as Chapter 2 showed, this was nothing new to the World History course, which traditionally embraced Eurocentrism. Even among academic historians, there was a raging debate between proponents of World History and Western Civilization in the 1980s and 1990s, the formative years of the World History Association.50 Eva-Maria Swidler also rightly points out that the global perspective adopted by (some) professional historians has not made much of an impact among academics in other disciplines like philosophy, classics, theology, literature, political science, etc…51 What was new, though, was that the ‘West and the rest’ approach had the imprimatur of law. The 1984 curriculum stressed that the requirements were simply minimum standards that school districts had to follow, and that they could exceed these minimums if they so chose.52 But, with the full weight of legislative authority behind them, covering the essential elements, including both values and content knowledge, was paramount for school districts to preserve their accreditation. Classroom materials soon followed since textbook adoption decisions were subsequently based on the new curriculum. Publishers engaged in practices designed to ensure that new texts met state standards.53 Teachers may have wanted to provide a less Eurocentric perspective, one that embraced a global or regional approach, but were significantly constrained by the encroaching power of the Texas government. The 1984 essential elements put a conservative stamp on the historically quintessential features of Eurocentrism, nationalism, and presentism of the course.54 The elected officials of the SBOE exerted more authority over classroom practice than at any time in Texas history. The creation of the Essential Elements signaled the end of an era of flexibility, experimentation, and local control. The era of standards was just beginning.

68  Standardizing the World, 1980–Present

TEKS, TAKS, and Politicized Attacks The SBOE approved their first revisions to the Essential Elements in 1991. The updated curricula largely replicated the structure of the 1980s version, but there were some intriguing differences. Rather than referring to ‘other regions,’ the new Essential Elements dedicated one of the five total elements to Asia, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere as important world regions, with a total of four sub-elements related to these areas.55 But the predominance of Western history continued, with two out of five elements accompanying 14 sub-elements. The 1991 Essential Elements made a distinction between the ‘foundations of Western Civilization,’ and the ‘emergence of European predominance,’ associated with the “concepts of liberty, individual freedom, property rights, and representative government.”56 The new elements also mandated that the World History course extoll the benefits of American capitalism and democracy throughout the world.57 So while there was some additional attention paid to non-Western societies, the revised 1991 Essential Elements continued the traditional Eurocentric organization for the World History course. But though the emphasis on Western history continued within Texas state standards in the early 1990s, information gleaned from adopted textbooks presents a more complicated picture. The next adoption period took place in 1990, just one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The intensely anti-communist tone of the Reagan years was less relevant than it had been six years earlier. And, in the subsequent years, professional world historians had further consolidated the burgeoning field at the university level, and became more active in textbook publication (Table 3.1). In the aggregate, the textbook adoption period of 1990–1999 demonstrates an interesting mixture of acquiescence and resistance to the constraints that the new system of standards imposed. The long-term trend of decreasing content on Western history resumed after the break in the 1984–1990 adoption period, with Western history declining by 8%. A key reason for this was an increased attention to global history.58 But the aggregate numbers need to be approached with caution since there were large differences between the textbooks adopted during this period. Table 3.1  Percentage of adopted textbook content dedicated to Western, nonWestern, and global history by Texas adoption period, 1977–1999 Adoption period

Western history

Non-Western history

Global history

1977–1983 1984–1990 1990–1999

53% 61% 53%

33% 30% 27%

9% 3% 12%

Standardizing the World, 1980–Present  69 Four of the textbooks approved from 1990–1999 devoted 60% or more of their content solely to Western history.59 For three of these texts, the much more traditional approach can best be explained by the vicissitudes of the publishing industry, where successful textbooks are often simply recycled with only minimal changes from year to year. Gerald Leinwand, a professor of education at New York University, first began publishing the textbook The Pageant of World History in the 1960s (his work first appeared on the Texas list in 1977).60 Burton Beers’ World History: Patterns of Civilization was already in its fifth edition by 1990. But the most extraordinary example of the recycling of textbooks was World History: People and Nations. The listed lead author of that book, Anatole Mazour, died years before publication. He and co-author John M. Peoples began publishing World History textbooks with Harcourt Brace in the 1950s.61 The remaining text, World History: Perspectives on the Past, first came out in 1988. The trio of high school teacher authors wrote a book focusing on Western Civilization 67% of the time.62 Adopted right alongside these more traditionally Eurocentric textbooks were two new books published by professional world historians.63 Of these, the textbook Links Across Time and Space, written by prominent world historian Ross Dun and a group of six co-authors, provides a remarkable example of a globally focused textbook. More than 70% of the book’s content elaborated on interactions between peoples and regions of the world, embodying a much more global approach than previous texts. According to the authors, respecting the diversity of humanity was a key goal for World History, but this did not mean a lessening or weakening of appreciation for American ideals and values. In fact, Links Across Time and Place argued just the reverse, that a better understanding of World History revealed that democracy and a respect for human rights were rare and precious, emphasizing their worth to students.64 Later books written by professional world historians contained far less global content, and Links Across Time and Place remains the only textbook adopted by the state of Texas that dedicated more than half of its content toward a global perspective. The Texas Education Agency began preparations to revise the state standards in the mid-1990s, but the new standards debate occurred in a very different environment than in the previous decade. The national Republican wave of victories in 1994 extended to the Texas State Board of Education. Republicans controlled a majority on the Board for the first time, but there were tensions between moderate and hardline conservative members.65 The more conservative faction complained of federal overreach in education and by special interest groups, often voting as a bloc.66 Between 1994 and 1997, the SBOE engaged in a process of curricular revision that embroiled the education system in controversy.

70  Standardizing the World, 1980–Present Partly in response to embarrassing publicity over SBOE textbook adoption decisions, and partly in an effort to de-centralize educational authority after the very top-down measures of the 1980s, the Texas legislature voted in 1995 to reduce the power of the SBOE.67 TEA became a separate entity from the SBOE, and the Board’s power over all aspects of education shrank significantly.68 From that point forward, the SBOE could only reject textbooks if they contained factual errors or if they failed to meet the Essential Elements.69 Nevertheless, the Board maintained broad authority over both textbook adoptions and curricular revisions. In 1995, the Texas legislature broadened the scope of the curriculum revision project by calling for the creation of a new list of essential elements and skills. A key goal was to identify measurable knowledge and skills that could be assessed by stricter state-wide testing efforts.70 The multi-year process began with a Social Studies Writing Group, whose 35 members included teachers, curriculum experts, businesspeople, and parents. This body submitted drafts to the Board, who solicited reports from a Review Committee and the wider Texas public. Finally, public hearings were held and SBOE members engaged in revisions until final approval. The result was a new set of standards, renamed the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), approved in 1997 for implementation in the 1998/1999 school year.71 A standout feature of the World History TEKS was how much the new version expanded upon the original standards. The 1980s elements took one and a half pages to articulate the five key goals of World History. But the 1997 TEKS contained nearly six pages of requirements including 27 knowledge and skills elements, and a host of additional sub-elements. Elements were divided according to the newly designed eight strands of the social studies, including: ten elements related to the discipline of history; four related to ‘culture’; two elements each related to economics; geography; citizenship; government; science, technology, and society; and finally, two elements devoted to social studies skills.72 The TEKS continued and even expanded the Eurocentric approach taken by the essential elements of the 1980s and early 1990s. The curriculum divided human history into Western history, and ‘other’ civilizations.73 One goal was that students should be able to identify the “traditional historical points of reference” in world history.74 According to the TEKS, almost all of these revolved around the West. For instance, one sub-element required students to be able to explain the significance of the following dates: 1066, 1215, 1492, 1789, 1914–1918, 1939–1945, all of which refer to significant events in Western history.75 There was no similar list for non-Western societies.76 This same pattern repeated in other elements, such as the science, technology, and society section. Though there were two sub-elements that broadly required knowledge of various civilizations, all 13 named scientists were European or American.77

Standardizing the World, 1980–Present  71 Education scholar Julio Noboa concluded that the late 1990s TEKS “served to reinforce many of the entrenched cultural prejudices and biases of the past.”78 Creating lists of ‘essential’ historical truths swiftly led to essentialism. That is, the standards boiled down very complex cultures, peoples, and events into overly simplistic lists of fundamentals, significant individuals, and major developments. Rather than the multiple and sometimes quite detailed requirements regarding Western history, a single element required students to understand the “major developments of sub-Saharan Africa, Mesoamerica, Andean South America, and Asia.”79 Sub-elements in the Culture strand required students to know about the “fundamental ideas and institutions” of “Eastern civilizations” China and Japan.80 The TEKS also insisted that Western history originated from only two sources: the Greco-Roman tradition and the Judeo-Christian tradition.81 The reality, of course, is far more complex. The Greeks and Romans borrowed from the cultures surrounding them, and Medieval Europe borrowed especially heavily from the Islamic World, but broadly from numerous cultures of Afro-Eurasia. It took time to adjust textbooks to the new TEKS standards, so there were two adoption periods in a short period of time (1999 and 2003). Textbook content coverage increasingly diverged from the intense Eurocentrism of the state standards. Average coverage on the West amounted to 49% in 1999 and decreased to 46% in 2003. Another notable change was a significant increase in coverage of non-Western history in the pre-1500 C.E. world, which jumped 8% from textbooks adopted in 1990. The fact that texts were devoting more attention to the non-West, even as Eurocentric state standards and testing requirements grew, is puzzling. In part, the overall size of the texts helps explain this phenomenon. In 1995, the Texas legislature restricted the ability of the SBOE to reject textbooks to matters of factual accuracy and coverage of the required state standards. As long as each required element received some coverage, textbooks could not be rejected. This incentived increasing the size of textbooks to include just about everything, a process Walter Russell Mead calls ‘kitchen-sinkism.’82 Publishers responded by cramming in more facts, leading to bigger and bulkier textbooks. In the 2003 adoption period, the average World History text clocked in at a hefty 976.5 pages. By comparison, the average number of pages in the 1984 adoption period was 733.4 pages. These page counts are for the substantive content chapters only and do not include front matter, tables of contents, appendices, or end matter. Inclusive, the textbooks sometimes surpassed 1,100 pages. And counting pages tells only part of the story, since textbooks became larger in area as well.83 Increasing the sheer size of the textbooks ensured that publishers

72  Standardizing the World, 1980–Present did not have to omit anything that could cause a problem in an adoption committee in Texas or any other state. Critics bemoan this tendency toward total coverage. Indeed, educators for decades have suggested that the World History course was overstuffed.84 Along with trends toward ‘readability formulas’ and ‘sensitivity rules,’ textbooks since the 1980s have lost narrative coherence and become less engaging for students.85 Nevertheless, politicized adoption processes in Texas and across the country incentivize publishers to create textbooks in this manner. The above numbers suggest that though these texts remain deeply problematic, they at least provide additional and more positive treatment of non-Western peoples than previous generations of World History textbooks. The new TEKS standards of the mid-1990s coincided with enhanced testing. Aligning testing with standards across the curriculum was, in fact, one of the most important goals in creating the TEKS. Beginning in 1998, Texas required end-of-course assessments in U.S. History. By 2003, a more comprehensive system emerged known as the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS).86 At the end of the tenth grade, students were required to take a TAKS exam in social studies, including questions in both U.S. History and World History Studies.87 Since students had the option of taking either World Geography or World History, the tenth-grade TAKS social studies exam only included questions taught in both courses.88 A study guide produced by the Texas Education Agency in 2007 suggested that students needed to be aware of a series of 13 ‘turning points in world history.’ The first four of these covered pre-history and included references to Asian and American civilizations. The remaining nine, starting with the Middle Ages, were entirely about European history, with no reference to the non-Western world whatsoever.89 The document stands as a testament to the continued prevalence of Eurocentrism within the Texas Education Agency, enshrined for a brief period in a testing regime that all students needed to pass to graduate high school. The TAKS system lasted only until 2012, when it was replaced by the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) system, which no longer included a tenth-grade social studies exam.90 By the turn of the new millennium, standards were deeply entrenched in the state of Texas. Textbooks continued trends that reduced Western content in favor of additional coverage of the non-Western world and, increasingly, toward more globally oriented materials.91 But the state standards doubled down on Eurocentrism, as did the newly enacted state testing system. Part of this was driven by an increasingly ideological SBOE. Though stripped of some of its authority, the Board nevertheless maintained enormous power and control over the curriculum as well as instructional materials used by teachers across the state. As the next section will demonstrate, the highly politicized decisions of the State Board caused an even more tendentious controversy in 2010.

Standardizing the World, 1980–Present  73

“For a Free Society: History is Everything”92 The title of this section is a quotation from Don McLeroy, the fiery conservative Chair of the Texas SBOE, who oversaw a stormy curricular revision resulting in a new set of TEKS in 2010. The ultra-conservative creationist believed that state standards needed to teach students what it meant to be American, and that if schools filled children’s minds “with a great storehouse of knowledge about Western Civilization, then maybe ‘this nation, under God,’ shall have a new birth of freedom.”93 McLeroy and a group of fellow conservatives were mostly interested in shaping the American history course, but their actions impacted World History as well. Throughout the 2010 revision process, Republicans controlled ten out of fifteen seats on the SBOE. Only two members of this group were educators, and none had professional expertise in history.94 As historian Keith Erekson points out, this was not a battle between conservatives and liberals, but “between moderate conservatives and social conservatives.”95 The SBOE once again solicited educators, parents, business representatives, and employers to serve on work groups designed to produce an initial draft of the revised standards.96 Drafts were then submitted to a group of expert reviewers, which quickly became the most controversial part of the entire process. No qualifications other than nomination by two members of the SBOE were necessary to be deemed an ‘expert.’ David Barton, Daniel Dreisbach, and Peter Marshall were nominated as experts, though they had questionable credentials.97 Others, such as Jesús F. de la Teja, had well-established reputations in history, but no special expertise in the subject of World History.98 For the most part, both the SBOE and their expert reviewers were concerned with American History. David Barton’s 87-page critique of the new curriculum, for example, included a mere page and a half dedicated to high school World History.99 His major comments were that the course should include more teaching of the Declaration of Independence, not use the word ‘capitalism’ as a synonym for his preferred term of ‘free enterprise,’ and more heavily promote ‘Celebrate Freedom’ week in Texas schools.100 But despite the general lack of concern for the subject, the SBOE and the expert reviewers stressed the continued predominance of Eurocentrism and were particularly interested in privileging Christianity in the new standards. Religious studies scholar David Brockman suggests that the ultra-conservative bloc on the SBOE included ‘Christian Americanists’ who showed a clear preference for Christianity, “which by definition contradicts balanced coverage of religion.”101 For Brockman, the chief impediment to more balanced coverage was the woeful lack of subject matter expertise utilized throughout the entire adoption process. For example, a full element with two sub-elements required students to understand “the

74  Standardizing the World, 1980–Present development of radical Islamic fundamentalism and the subsequent use of terrorism by some of its adherents.”102 Additional sub-elements made it clear that this was specifically related to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. But while many religious extremists have resorted to terrorism throughout history, Islam was the only religion singled out by the TEKS. Even more controversially, one of the sub-elements required teaching that “Arab rejection of the state of Israel has led to ongoing conflict.”103 This sub-element was obviously politically motivated, providing an absurdly simplistic explanation for a complex and thorny area of world conflict.104 Politically motivated elements and a very biased approach to religion dominated headlines during the public debate over the 2010 TEKS, but in several important respects, the new curriculum improved upon the 1998 version. In particular, the World History course adopted a new periodization scheme that covered six time periods based on the Advanced Placement World History (APWH) course. The time periods include: Development of River Valley Civilizations; the Classical Era; the Postclassical Era; Connecting Hemispheres; Age of Revolutions; and 20th Century to the present.105 This may seem like a small alteration, but it has the potential to push the course toward a much more nuanced and global perspective on the human past, embracing the insights of professional world historians. The 2010 TEKS also provided for enhanced representation of nonWestern societies through new or expanded sub-elements, particularly in the newly designated ‘post-Classical’ period (600–1450 C.E.). Teaching of the Tang and Song Dynasties in China, the Silk Road, and the African gold-salt trade, and a more detailed understanding of the spread of Islam were, for the first time, requirements in the Texas curriculum.106 NonWestern figures like Nelson Mandela, Mohandas Gandhi, Oscar Romero, and Indira Gandhi found a place in the curriculum.107 Asian, preColumbian American, and Islamic civilizations were included in lists of mathematical and scientific achievements.108 The presence of so much additional non-Western content was stunning compared to the previous standards of the 1980s and 1990s. In his evaluation of the 2010 standards, historian David C. Fisher argues that the new curriculum was “a missed opportunity.”109 Fisher compared the state of World History standards with contemporary practices among professional world historians, noting the yawning gap between the two. Without question, the new curriculum continued to view World History through a Eurocentric lens, and did not align with academic scholarship. But these changes nevertheless reveal significant progress toward a more global approach to World History in the state of Texas. If, rather than faulting the curriculum for not matching professional historical standards, we compare the 2010 standards to those that came before, controversies and all, it is clear that they represent a major

Standardizing the World, 1980–Present  75 improvement. Evidence from textbooks approved in 2016 and a ‘streamlining’ effort in 2018 suggest that the overtly ideological goals of the SBOE were not met. Soon after the battle over the 2010 TEKS, the Texas legislature began allowing additional local control over textbook decisions, partially reversing nearly a century’s worth of state control over classroom instructional materials. In 2011, local school districts received the power to choose their own textbooks, so long as they adhered to the essential elements and skills stipulated by state law.110 This was partly done in response to the embarrassing negative publicity generated by the 2010 TEKS revisions, but was also a response to the financial pressures of the Great Recession.111 Though this change allowed for greater freedom in the selection of textbooks and other instructional materials, existing data suggest that most Texas school districts, including many of the largest metropolitan areas, continue to utilize the officially sanctioned SBOE list.112 The continued relevance of the list helps explain why the textbook selection process in the mid-2010s caused yet more partisan controversy. It took years to create textbooks that met the 2010 TEKS requirements, which were not adopted for use in schools until 2016. The Texas Freedom Network (TFN), an Austin-based non-profit organization that bills itself as the “state’s watchdog for monitoring far-right issues,” commissioned studies on the proposed textbooks.113 The most scathing came from Edward Countryman, a distinguished professor from Southern Methodist University. Countryman argued that the “incoherent and pedagogically almost impossible” state standards, which required teachers to “jam in a vast amount of material that makes no sense at all,” significantly hampered publishers and textbook authors.114 Another report commissioned by TFN and written by David Brockman examined the treatment of religion in the proposed textbooks. Brockman argued that there were certainly problems, particularly with the representation of Islam, but that the textbooks covered religion “with greater accuracy and evenhandedness than do the Texas world history standards.”115 Textbooks did not slavishly follow the TEKS, though they did alter some of their writing to meet the demands of state standards. Textbooks approved in 2016 exhibited two important new trends. The first was a sharp move toward more global history.116 Each of the texts devoted at least 24% of their overall coverage toward global history. This trend was powered by an increased attention to global history in the recent past (1945-Present), which approached human history by looking at connections and common issues rather than taking a region-by-region approach. Though global content increased by 11% in the 1500–1945 period, Western history still accounted for 57% of pages for that chronological era. The second notable development in 2016 Texas textbooks was that, for the first time, Western and non-Western history received equal

76  Standardizing the World, 1980–Present treatment in the pre-1500 C.E. period. The trend toward enhanced coverage of non-Western regions of the world picked up steam in the 1970s, representing perhaps the most significant change in the history of Texas World History textbooks. The first generation of textbooks in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, by comparison, rarely devoted more than 4% of their coverage on the ancient world to territories outside of Europe and the ancient Middle East. Both of these trends may be the result of key changes to the TEKS in 2010. Those standards adopted a new and more global chronological framework, including numerous additional elements regarding pre-modern non-Western peoples. But these changes kept a largely Eurocentric perspective on the 1500–1945 time period, resulting in the continued dominance of Western history for those centuries.117 Completed in late 2018, a ‘streamlining’ process significantly changed the tone and tenor of the 2010 TEKS. The Texas Education Agency describes streamlining as a process of reducing the total content to be mastered by students. Ideally, streamlining should result in “fewer and clearer” requirements without “diluting the rigor” of standards.118 The process for these revisions involved quite a bit more input from educators and specialists with actual content knowledge than previously. Initial input for revisions came from a survey of state educators who contributed information on which expectations they saw as essential, and which they deemed less so.119 The SBOE still had the power to appoint expert reviewers, known in this round of revision as ‘content advisers.’ But, unlike in 2010, content advisers had to have a bachelor’s degree, demonstrated expertise in the subject area, and to have either taught or worked in the field.120 The 2018 streamlined TEKS partially corrected some of the most controversial elements of the 2010 revisions. Take, for example, the following: 2010: Explain how Arab rejection of the State of Israel has led to ongoing conflict. 2018: Discuss factors contributing to the Arab-Israeli conflict, including the rejection of the existence of the state of Israel by the Arab League and a majority of Arab nations.121 The new element still clearly suggested that Arabs were primarily at fault for the Arab-Israeli conflict, but now argued that it was one of multiple factors leading to the Middle Eastern conflict. The stated rationale for this change was simply “edited for clarification,” but this change does not simply clarify the original text, it undermines the ideological tone of the 2010 version.122 The revision committee also changed an element requiring students to learn how “Islam influences” law and government in the Muslim world. The new 2018 element required that students learn about

Standardizing the World, 1980–Present  77 “geopolitical and religious influences.”123 These small alterations reduced some of the overtly ideological content from the 2010 TEKS. The 2018 streamlining reviewers also took aim at explicitly Eurocentric elements from 2010. A key change happened in History element seven: 2010: The student understands the causes and impact of European expansion from 1450–1750. 2018: The student understands the causes and impact of increased global interaction from 1450 to 1750.124 [emphasis added]. European actions could now be placed in a more global context when teaching the Ottoman Empire, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Ming China, and the Columbian Exchange. For the first time, a Texas curriculum document de-emphasized a purely Eurocentric perspective in favor of a global approach for the pivotal early modern period of history. The 2018 streamlined TEKS still refer to “radical Islamic terror” and ceaselessly praise “free enterprise,” but nevertheless made critical edits patching over some of the most problematic elements of the 2010 state standards.125 It is possible that publishing trends and the 2018 streamlined TEKS will influence textbook content and coverage in future textbook adoption periods, and may indicate a greater willingness to embrace the more global perspective advocated by professional world historians and the World History Association.

Conclusion Since the 1980s battles over standards have become a routine front in the culture wars of the United States, with the Essential Elements approved by Texas a particularly volatile flashpoint. The reasons for this are not hard to understand. All sides agree that history is vital to producing the right kind of citizen for the future of the nation. But there are sharp differences between professional historians, elected officials, educators, and publishers over how history can best fulfill this important objective. Reconciling these competing groups is a monumental, perhaps intractable, challenge. A central issue is that standards lead to bad history. Professional level training in history is naturally resistant to sweeping generalizations, fixed and rigid chronologies, and lists of facts and figures deemed to be ‘essential’ truths. The historical method prizes context and complexity as necessary foundations for historical truth.126 Ross Dunn makes the case that World History teachers should give up on a search for a master narrative for the sprawling subject, which resists “being caged behind civilizational, national, or ethnic bars.”127 Another prominent world historian, Peter Stearns, makes a similar case. The key is not to produce better lists of facts, names, and dates, because “better lists would still mislead, and it is

78  Standardizing the World, 1980–Present best not to play the game at all.”128 In part, this explains the chasm between the academic practice of world history and the subject as it continues to be taught in Texas schools.129 The trouble, though, is that the American education system today rests on adopting state standards. Elected state officials with little professional subject-matter expertise are tasked with boiling down mountains of information into a manageable list of the most important truths. Even without considering the politics involved, this is a tall order for any public servant. But the politics are important, as shown by the battles over the TEKS in the 1990s and in 2010. A closer look at the conflicts over the Essential Elements of the Texas curriculum reveals, however, that the situation is not hopeless. Despite strong pressure from a politicized SBOE, World History students in Texas today experience a set of standards and textbooks that are notably less Eurocentric on average than previous eras. The 2010 decision to adopt a globally oriented chronology is particularly encouraging for the future of the course. Given the typical processes and procedures for their creation, state standards are unlikely to reflect the latest in historical scholarship, or to include a cohesive, accurate, and easily followed narrative. Recognizing the many issues involved in creating state standards, historian Merry Weisner-Hanks pragmatically concluded that “we need to get more names into the standards, and make sure that these are in the right historical period and spelled correctly.”130 It is possible to insist that standards become more accurate, more inclusive, and more attentive to the needs of the student population receiving the information. But this process is messily inconsistent and will only rarely result in sweeping changes toward new interpretive frameworks. Texas curriculum history reveals a lurching, uneven, but noticeable trend toward a more global approach to World History.

Notes 1 Ronald Evans, The Social Studies Wars: What Should We Teach the Children? (New York: Teachers College Press, 2004), Chapter 7. 2 Linda Symcox, Whose History? The Struggle for National Standards in American Classrooms (New York: Teachers College Press, 2002), 43–45. 3 The National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (Washington, DC: Department of Education, 1983), iii. 4 Ibid, 5. 5 Ibid, 27. 6 Symcox, Whose History? 45–46. 7 Margret Montgomery, “Texas Curriculum Revision and the National Scene,” in Curriculum Revision: Mandates and Processes: Implications of House Bill 246 for Texas Schools, eds. Joyce Miller and Mary McCabe (Garland, TX: Ramsey Enterprises, 1984), 1.

Standardizing the World, 1980–Present  79 8 Ibid, 77. 9 Kenneth T. Jackson and Barbara B. Jackson, “Why the time is right to reform the history curriculum,” in Historical Literacy: The Case for History in American Education, ed. Paul Gagnon (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989), 5. 10 Ibid, 12. 11 For more on these debates in the late 1980s and early 1990s, see Catherine Cornbleth and Dexter Waugh, The Great Speckled Bird: Multicultural Politics and Educational Policymaking (New York: Routledge, 1995). 12 Diane Ravitch, “The Plight of History in American Schools,” in Gagnon, Historical Literacy, 65. 13 Ross Dunn, “A Statement,” World History Bulletin 2, no. 1 (1984): 6. 14 Ross Dunn, “Central Themes for World History,” in Gagnon, Historical Literacy, 216–233. 15 Robert Bain, NAEP 12th Grade World History Assessment: Issues and Options (Washington, DC: National Assessment Governing Board, 2004). 16 Symcox, Whose History? 95. 17 Gary B. Nash and Charlotte A. Crabtree, National Standards for History (Los Angeles: National Center for History in the Schools, 1994). 18 For more on the controversy over the standards, see Symcox, Whose History? Gary Nash, Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross Dunn, History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past (New York: Vintage Books, 1997); Gary Nash, “Lynne Cheney’s Attack on the History Standards, 10 Years Later,” History News Network, November 8, 2004. Accessed June 18, 2020. http:// hnn.us/article/8418 19 Symcox, Whose History? Chapter 6. 20 Symcox, Whose History? 107–110. 21 In particular, history was largely left out of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top initiatives of the past two decades. Fritz Fischer, The Memory Hole: The U.S. History Curriculum Under Siege (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc., 2014), 140. 22 Texas Education Agency, Division of Curriculum Development, Framework for the Social Studie: Kindergarten-Grade 12 (Austin: Texas Education Agency, 1980). 23 Texas Education Agency, Framework for the Social Studies, 28. For more on how conservative notions of ‘free enterprise’ in Texas, see Fischer, The Memory Hole, Chapter 2. 24 Texas Education Agency, Framework for the Social Studies, 16. 25 These were not requirements, but suggestions after multiple years of careful development in a curriculum development committee. Social Studies Section, Division of Curriculum Development, Social Studies Subgoals and Suggested Essential Student Objectives (Austin: Texas Education Agency, 1980), 1. 26 Social Studies Section, Social Studies Subgoals and Suggested Essential Student Objectives, 19. 27 Texas Education Agency, Framework for the Social Studies, 11. 28 Texas Education Agency, Framework for the Social Studies, 12. 29 This adoption period included a global history perspective from William McNeill, an anthropologist’s regional approach from Paul Welty, in addition to more traditional chronological approaches taken by Gerald Leinwand. For the full list of adopted textbooks during this time period, see Appendix A. 30 Montgomery, “Texas Curriculum Revision and the National Scene,” 4. 31 Julius Knebel, “Implications of House Bill 246 for Teaching the Social Studies,” in Miller and McCabe, Curriculum Revision, 64.

80  Standardizing the World, 1980–Present 32 Texas Education Agency, Social Studies Framework, Kindergarten-Grade 12 (Austin: Texas Education Agency, 1986), 1. 33 The only requirements to serve on the SBOE are: U.S. citizenship, 26 years of age, resident of the district to which you are elected, registered voter. Charles W. Funkhouser, Education in Texas: Policies, Practices, and Perspectives Ninth Edition (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill, 2000), 37. 34 The Board reverted back to an elected position just five years later. Delfattore, What Johnny Shouldn’t Read: Textbook Censorship in America, 141. 35 Bobbie Stevens Johnson, “Education Since 1960,” in Funkhouser, Education in Texas Ninth Edition, 199–200. 36 For a useful guide to the differences between H.B. 246 and H.B. 72, see of W.  Norton Grubb, The Initial Effects of House Bill 72 on Texas Public Schools: The Challenges of Equity and Effectiveness, Texas School Finance Policy Research Project Report No. 70, the University of Texas at Austin, 1985, Chapter 9. 37 Texas Education Agency, State Board of Education Rules for Curriculum: Principles, Standards, and Procedures for Accreditation of School Districts (Austin: Texas Education Agency, 1984), 1. 38 Texas Education Agency, State Board of Education Rules for Curriculum, 33. 39 The state officially called the subjects World History Studies and World Geography Studies, but I will use the more widely known terms of World History and World Geography for consistency’s sake. If they took both courses one counted as an elective. 40 Ibid, 46–47. 41 Ibid, 45. 42 These two included: Allan Kownslar and Terry Smart, People and Our World: A Study of World History (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Publishers, 1984); T. Walter Wallbank, Arnold Schrier, Donna Maier, and Patricia Gutierrez-Smith, History and Life: The World and Its People Teachers’ Annotated Second Edition (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, and Company, 1984). Note that the Wallbank book billed itself as an ‘inclusive chronological book,’ though it had regional elements that made classifying the book as chronological problematic. 43 Please note, however, that some regional elements remain in many textbooks. This is particularly true of ancient history and the post-World War II era. For more on how this works in the post-WWII period, see Chapter 6. 44 This included 6 out of 38 sub-elements. Texas Education Agency, State Board of Education Rules for Curriculum, 143–145. 45 Ibid, 48. 46 Texas Education Agency, State Board of Education Rules for Curriculum, 46. 47 Ibid, ibidem. 48 World History was an exception to this, as the books were adopted with the new standards in mind in 1984. Knebel, “Implications of House Bill 246 for Teaching the Social Studies,” 64. 49 Content on the West increased from 53% to 61% from the 1977–1983 adoption period to the 1984–1990 adoption period. See Appendix C for more details. 50 As late as 2005, Peter Stearns noted that “the ongoing debate between partisans of Western civilization surveys and fans of world history continues, with no signs of any abatement.” Peter Stearns, “A Modest Proposal,” Perspectives on History, May 1, 2005, Accessed June 29, 2020. https://www.historians. org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-2005/amodest-proposal Gilbert Sewell and the American Textbook Council lobbied vociferously in favor of a World History course based around “the story of

Standardizing the World, 1980–Present  81 democracy and evolution of liberty,” which would strongly privilege Western history. Sewell objects to the ‘non-Western outlook’ taken by the World History Association. Gilbert Sewall, World History Textbooks: A Review (New York: The American Textbook Council, 2004), 9. 51 Eva-Maria Swidler, “Defending Western Civ: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Course,” World Hitory Connected 4, no. 2 (2007). Accessed July 8, 2020. https://worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/4.2/ swidler.html 52 Texas Education Agency, State Board of Education Rules for Curriculum, 1. 53 Please note that this is a complicated process, and can involve publishers interpreting state standards in ways that State Board of Education members did not intend. Increasingly, publishers can customize content to satisfy state demands in various states and, in some cases, even region by region within a state. Brian Thevenot, “The Textbook Myth,” The Texas Tribune, March 26, 2010. Accessed June 16, 2020. https://www.texastribune.org/2010/03/26/ texas-textbooks-national-influence-is-a-myth/ 54 The section on the 20th century contained 13 sub-elements, larger than any other element in the World History Studies curriculum. Texas Education Agency, State Board of Education Rules for Curriculum 47–48. 55 Title 19, Chapter 75, Subchapter D, Essential Elements Grade Nine-Twelve. Texas Education Agency, 1991, 109. 56 Ibid, 109. 57 Ibid, 112. 58 For the purposes of this numerical study, global history is defined as content dedicated to the interaction of two or more regions, or content that discusses multiple regions undergoing similar historical processes in the same analytical framework. As a percentage of total textbook content, global history increased from 2% to 12%, matching the previous highpoint of the late 1970s adoption period. Please note, though, that global history was unevenly distributed among the textbooks. 59 Burton Beers, World History: Patterns of Civilization Annotated Teacher’s Edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990); Steven Jantzen, Larry Krieger, and Kenneth Neill, World History: Perspectives on the Past Texas Teacher’s Annotated Edition (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1990); Gerald Leinwand, The Pageant of World History (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1990); Anatole Mazour and John Peoples, World History, People and Nations (Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1990). 60 Gerald Leinwand, The Pageant of World History (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1977). 61 Mazour and Peoples first appeared on the Texas adoption list with their Men and Nations: A World History (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1961). 62 Jantzen, World History. 63 Ross Dunn, Links Across Time and Place: A World History (Evanston, IL: McDougal, Littell & Company, 1990); Peter Stearns, Donald Schwartz, and Barry Beyer, World History: Traditions and New Directions Annotated Teacher’s Edition (Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1989). 64 Dunn, Links Across Time and Place, v. 65 Diane Patrick, “The Texas State Board of Education,” in Funkhouser, Education in Texas 9th Edition, 37. Please note that the nature of membership in the SBOE has changed significantly over time. Membership was appointed until 1949, and from 1984–1988.

82  Standardizing the World, 1980–Present 6 Ibid, 39. 6 67 Sandra Lowry and Janiece Buck, “Three Decades of Educational Reform in Texas: Putting the Pieces Together,” in American Standards: Quality Education in a Complex World, the Texas Case, eds. Raymond Horn and Joe Kincheloe (New York: Counterpoints, 2001), 277. 68 Frank Kemerer and Jim Walsh, “Overview of Texas Education Law,” in Funkhouser, Education in Texas 9th Edition, 22. 69 Patrick, “The Texas State Board of Education,” 39. 70 Lowry and Buck, “Three Decades of Educational Reform in Texas,” 274–277. 71 Texas Education Agency, Texas Social Studies Framework: KindergartenGrade 12 (Austin: Texas Education Agency, 1999), 8. 72 Texas Education Agency, Chapter 113. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies (Austin: Texas Education Agency) 1998. 73 Ibid, 113.33 (b) (1). 74 Ibid, 113.33 (c)(1). 75 The dates refer to the Norman Conquest of England, the signing of the Magna Carta, Christopher Columbus’ first trans-Atlantic voyage, the French Revolution, and the two World Wars. 76 Texas Education Agency, Chapter 113. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies, 113.33 (c) (1)(D). 77 Ibid, 113.33 (c) (22)–(24). 78 Julio Noboa, “Missing Pages from the Human Story: World History According to Texas Standards,” Journal of Latinos and Education 11 (2012): 60. 79 Texas Education Agency, Chapter 113. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies, Chapter 113.33 (c) (6). 80 Ibid, 113.33 (c)(22)(A). 81 Ibid, 113.33 (c)(18)(B). 82 Walter Russell Mead, The State of World History Standards (Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2006), 6. 83 See Appendix C for details on total page counts in World History textbooks. 84 You can find criticisms of how overstuffed World History is as early as the 1930s. A.K. King, “Is World History as Successful as We Thought It Would Be?” The High School Journal 20, no. 5 (1937): 182–187. For this type of critique from the 1980s, see Peter Stearns, “Periodization in World History Teaching: Identifying the Big Changes,” The History Teacher 20, no. 4 (1987): 561–580. 85 For more on changes to publisher practices leading to more anodyne texts, see: Delfattore, What Johnny Shouldn’t Read; Diane Ravitch, The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003); Harriet Tyson-Bernstein, “Textbook Development in the United States: How Good Ideas Become Bad Textbooks,” in Textbooks in the Developing World: Economic and Educational Choices, eds. Joseph Farrell and Stephen Heyneman (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1989), 72–87. 86 Texas Education Agency, Technical Digest 2018–2019, “Chapter 1: Historical Overview of Assessment in Texas,” TEA Website, Accessed October 19, 2020. https://tea.texas.gov/student-assessment/testing/student-assessment-overview/ technical-digest-2018-2019 87 Texas Education Agency, TAKS Study Guide: Grade 10 Social Studies, A Student and Family Guide (Austin: Texas Education Agency, 2007), 6. The TAKS Grade 10 exam did not last long, and was gradually replaced with an end-of course examination after 2007. The entire TAKS system was replaced in 2012. Texas Education Agency, Technical Digest 2018–2019, Chapter 1.

Standardizing the World, 1980–Present  83 88 Texas Education Agency, TAKS Study Guide, 6. 89 Ibid, 44–46. 90 Texas Education Agency, Technical Digest 2018–2019, Chapter 1. For more on the new STAAR system, see: “STAAR Resources,” Texas Education Agency Website, Accessed October 15th, 2020. https://tea.texas.gov/studentassessment/testing/staar/staar-resources 91 Just because a textbook contained enhanced coverage of the non-Western world does not mean that the coverage was free from Eurocentric assumptions. See Chapters 4 and 5 for more on this topic. 92 Don McLeroy, “Foreword,” in Texas Trounces the Left’s War on History, ed. Bill Ames (Dallas: Taylor Publishing, 2012), 5. 93 Ibid, 7. 94 David Brockman, Religious Imbalance in the Texas Social Studies Curriculum: Analysis and Recommendations, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy of Rice University, 2016, 8. Accessed May 28, 2020. http:// www.bakerinstitute.org/research/religious-imbalance-texas-social-studiescurriculum/ 95  Keith Erekson, “Culture War Circus: How Politics and the Media Left History Education Behind,” in Politics and the History Curriculum: The Struggle Over Standards in Texas and the Nation, ed. Keith Erekson (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 9. 96 “TEKS Review and Revision,” Texas Education Agency Website, Accessed October 5, 2020. https://tea.texas.gov/academics/curriculum-standards/teksreview/teks-review-and-revision 97 For more on this, see Mark A. Chancey, “Rewriting History for a Christian America: Religion and the Texas Social Studies Controversy of 2009–2010,” The Journal of Religion 93, no. 3 (2014): 325–353. 98 Jesús F. de la Teja, “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness? An Expert Reviewer’s Experience,” in Politics and the History Curriculum, ed. Erekson, 61–73. 99 Barton commented more extensively on Grade 6 history, which looks at various world societies. David Barton, “Social Studies TEKS Second Review,” September 2009. 35–40. Available on the TEA Website, “Social studies TEKS,” Accessed March 9, 2020. https://tea.texas.gov/academics/curriculumstandards/teks-review/social-studies-teks 100 David Barton, “Social Studies TEKS Second Review,” 85–87. 101 Brockman, “Religious Imbalance in the Texas Social Studies Curriculum,” 13. 102 Texas Education Agency, Chapter 113. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies (Austin: Texas Education Agency, 2010), 14. TEA  Website, Accessed June 4, 2020. http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/ chapter113/ch113c.html#113.42 103 Texas Education Agency, Chapter 113. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies, 2010, 15. 104 Ibid, 16. 105 Texas Education Agency, Chapter 113. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies, 2010, 11. For more on this change, see: David C. Fisher, “A Missed Opportunity for World History in Texas,” in Politics and the History Curriculum, ed. Erekson. 106 Texas Education Agency, Chapter 113. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies, 2010, 13. 107 Ibid, 17. 108 Ibid, 18. 109 Fisher, “A Missed Opportunity for World History in Texas,” 171. 110 Allan O. Kownslar, The Great Texas Social Studies Textbook War of 1961– 1962 (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2020), 283.

84  Standardizing the World, 1980–Present 111  Catherine Gewertz, “States Ceding Power Over Classroom Materials,” Education Week, February 17, 2015. Accessed June 16, 2020. https://www. edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/02/18/states-ceding-power-over-classroommaterials.html 112 Brockman, “Religious Imbalance in the Texas Social Studies Curriculum,” 14; Gewertz, “States Ceding Power over Classroom Materials.” 113 Texas Freedom Network, “Mission,” Accessed October 5, 2020. https://tfn. org/mission/ 114 Edward Countryman et al., Complying with, Getting Around, and Bypassing the TEKS History Standards: A Review of Proposed Texas, U.S., and World History Textbooks in Texas (Austin, TX: Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, 2014), 4. 115 David Brockman, More Balanced than the Standards: A Review of the Presentation of Religion in Proposed Textbooks for High School World History in Texas (Austin, TX: Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, 2014), 3. 116 Please note, electronic materials were not included in this analysis. 117 Western content encompassed 57% of textbook coverage from 1500 to 1945, a decrease of only 1% since the previous adoption period. 118 “TEKS Review and Revision Process.” Accessed October 9, 2020. https:// tea.texas.gov/academics/curriculum-standards/teks-review/teks-review-andrevision 119 “TEKS Review and Revision Process.” 120 Ibid. 121 “World History Studies: Crosswalk from 2010 TEKS to 2018 Streamlined TEKS,” in “Resources for the Streamlined Social Studies TEKS,” Texas Education Agency Website, 9. Accessed August 15, 2020. https://tea.texas. gov/academics/subject-areas/social-studies/resources-for-the-streamlinedsocial-studies-teks 122 Ibid, ibidem. 123 Ibid, 16. 124 Ibid, 5. 125 History element 14 and Economics element 17 especially. “World History Studies: Crosswalk From 2010 TEKS to 2018 Streamlined TEKS,” 9 and 11. 126 Fritz Fischer calls these the “rules of the discipline” that form necessary habits of mind for the historian. Fischer, The Memory Hole, xvi–xvii. 127 Ross Dunn, The New World History: A Teacher’s Companion (Boston: Bedford St. Martin’s, 2000), 6. 128 Stearns, “A Modest Proposal,” 9. 129 Dunn is aware of this gap, and has in fact written about it. Ross Dunn, “The Two World Histories,” Social Education 72, no. 5 (2008): 257–263. 130 Merry Weisner-Hanks, “Teaching World History in a Swirl of Standards,” in Encounters Old and New in World History: Essays Inspired by Jerry H. Bentley, eds. Jerry Bentley, Alan Karras, and Laura Mitchell (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2017), 46.

Bibliography Ames, Bill. Texas Trounces the Left’s War on History. Dallas, TX: Taylor Publishing, 2012. Bain, Robert B. “NAEP 12th Grade World History Assessment: Issues and Options.” Washington, DC: National Assessment Governing Board, 2004. Barton, David. “Social Studies TEKS Second Review.” Texas Education Agency, 2009. https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/Barton%20draft%201.pdf

Standardizing the World, 1980–Present  85 Beers, Burton. World History: Patterns of Civilization. Annotated Teacher’s Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990. Bentley, Jerry H, Alan Karras, and Laura Jane Mitchell, eds. Encounters Old and  New in World History: Essays Inspired by Jerry H. Bentley. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i press, 2017. Brockman, David. More Balanced Than the Standards: A Review of the Presentation of Religion in Proposed Textbooks for High School World History in Texas. Austin, TX: Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, 2014. Brockman, David R. Religious Imbalance in the Texas Social Studies Curriculum: Analysis and Recommendations. James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy of Rice University, 2016. http://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/religiousimbalance-texas-social-studies-curriculum/ Cornbleth, Catherine, and Dexter Waugh. The Great Speckled Bird: Multicultural Politics and Education Policymaking. New York: Routledge, 1995. Countryman, Edward. Complying with, Getting Around, and Bypassing the TEKS History Standards: A Review of Proposed Texas, U.S., and World History Textbooks in Texas. Austin, TX: Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, 2014. Delfattore, Joan. What Johnny Shouldn’t Read: Textbook Censorship in America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. Dunn, Ross. “The Two World Histories.” Social Education 72, no. 5 (2008): 257–63. Dunn, Ross, Dorothy Abrahamse, Edward Farmer, James Garvey, Denny Schillings, and David Victor. Links Across Time and Place: A World History. Evanston, IL: McDougal, Littell & Company, 1990. Dunn, Ross E. “A Statement.” World History Bulletin 2, no. 1 (1984): 1–6. ———. The New World History: A Teacher’s Companion. Boston: Bedford St. Martin’s, 2000. Erekson, Keith, ed. Politics and the History Curriculum: The Struggle Over Standards in Texas and the Nation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Evans, Ronald W. The Social Studies Wars: What Should We Teach the Children? New York: Teachers College Press, 2004. Farrell, Joseph P., and Stephen P. Heyneman, eds. Textbooks in the Developing World: Economic and Educational Choices. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1989. Fischer, Fritz. The Memory Hole: The U.S. History Curriculum Under Siege. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc., 2014. Funkhouser, Charles W., ed. Education in Texas: Policies, Practices, and Perspectives. Ninth Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill, 2000. Gagnon, Paul, and The Bradley Commission on History in Schools, eds. Historical Literacy: The Case for History in American Education. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989. Gewertz, Catherine. “States Ceding Power Over Classroom Materials.” Education Week, February 17, 2015. https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/02/18/ states-ceding-power-over-classroom-materials.html Grubb, W. Norton. The Initial Effects of House Bill 72 on Texas Public Schools: The Challenges of Equity and Effectiveness. Austin, Texas: Texas School Finance Policy Research Project, The University of Texas at Austin, 1985. Horn, Raymond A., and Joe L. Kincheloe, eds. American Standards: Quality Education in a Complex World, the Texas Case. New York: Counterpoints, 2001.

86  Standardizing the World, 1980–Present Jantzen, Steven L., Larry S. Krieger, and Kenneth Neill. World History: Perspectives on the Past. Texas Teacher’s Annotated Edition. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1990. King, A.K. “Is World History as Successful as We Thought It Would Be?” The High School Journal 20, no. 5 (1937): 182–87. Kownslar, Allan O. The Great Texas Social Studies Textbook War of 1961–1962. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2020. Kownslar, Allan O., and Terry L. Smart. People and Our World: A Study of World History. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Publishers, 1984. Leinwand, Gerald. The Pageant of World History. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall Inc., 1990. Mazour, Anatole G., and John M. Peoples. Men and Nations: A World History. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World Inc., 1961. ———. World History: People and Nations. Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1990. Mead, Walter Russell. “The State of State World History Standards.” Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2006. Miller, Joyce E., and Mary McCabe, eds. Curriculum Revision: Mandates and Processes: Implications of House Bill 246 for Texas Schools. Garland, TX: Ramsey Enterprises, 1984. Nash, Gary B. “Lynne Cheney’s Attack on the History Standards, 10 Years Later.” History News Network, November 8, 2004. http://hnn.us/article/8418 Nash, Gary, Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross Dunn. History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Noboa, Julio. “Missing Pages from the Human Story: World History According to Texas Standards.” Journal of Latinos and Education 11 (2012): 47–62. Perkins, Clarence. Man’s Advancing Civilization. New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1934. Ravitch, Diane. The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Sewall, Gilbert T. World History Textbooks: A Review. New York: American Textbook Council, 2004. Social Studies Section, Division of Curriculum Development. Social Studies Subgoals and Suggested Essential Student Objectives. Austin, Texas: Texas Education Agency, 1980. Stearns, Peter N. “A Modest Proposal.” Perspectives on History, May 1, 2005. https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/ may-2005/a-modest-proposal ———. “Periodization in World History Teaching: Identifying the Big Changes.” The History Teacher 20, no. 4 (1987): 561–80. Swidler, Eva-Maria. “Defending Western Civ: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Course.” World History Connected 4, no. 2 (2007). https:// worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/4.2/swidler.html Symcox, Linda. Whose History? The Struggle for National Standards in American Classrooms. New York: Teachers College Press, 2002. TAKS Study Guide: Grade 10 Social Studies, A Student and Family Guide. Austin, TX: Texas Education Agency, 2007. Texas Education Agency. “Social Studies Framework, Kindergarten-Grade 12,” 1986.

Standardizing the World, 1980–Present  87 ———. “STAAR Resources.” n.d.-a Accessed October 15, 2020. https://tea.texas. gov/student-assessment/testing/student-assessment-overview/technical-digest2018-2019 ———. “State Board of Education Rules for Curriculum: Principles, Standards, and Procedures for Accreditation of School Districts,” 1984. ———. “Technical Digest 2018–2019,” 2019a. https://tea.texas.gov/studentassessment/testing/student-assessment-overview/technical-digest-2018-2019 ———. “TEKS Review and Revision.”n.d.-b Accessed October 5, 2020. https:// tea.texas.gov/academics/curriculum-standards/teks-review/teks-review-andrevision ———. “Texas Social Studies Framework: Kindergarten-Grade 12,” 1999. ———. “World History Studies, Crosswalk from 2010 TEKS to 2018 Streamlined TEKS,” 2019b. ———. “World History Studies Essential Elements,” December 27, 1991. Texas Education Agency. Texas Education Agency, Division of Curriculum Development. “Framework for the Social Studies: Kindergarten-Grade 12,” 1980. Texas Education Code. Chapter 113. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies. Austin, TX: Texas Education Agency, 1998. ———. “Chapter 113. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies,” 2010. Texas Freedom Network. “Mission.” n.d. Accessed October 5, 2020. https://tfn. org/mission/ The National Commission on Excellence in Education. A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. Washington, DC: Department of Education, 1983. Thevenot, Brian. “The Textbook Myth.” The Texas Tribune, March 26, 2010. https://www.texastribune.org/2010/03/26/texas-textbooks-national-influenceis-a-myth/ Wallbank, T. Walter, Arnold Schrier, Donna Maier, and Patricia Gutierrez-Smith. History and Life: The World and Its People Teacher’s Annotated Edition. 2nd Edition. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1984.

4 Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains Eurocentrism in Action

The previous two chapters demonstrated that textbooks, curriculum guides, and standards include more and more non-Western or global content with nearly every new textbook adoption period or standards revision process. Nevertheless, Eurocentrism is alive and well in Texas World History textbooks today. To better understand how and why, we must recognize the two primary methods by which Eurocentrism becomes entrenched within instructional materials. The first is through exclusion, by omitting information on non-Western societies. Eurocentrism through exclusion was most noticeable in the first few decades of the World History course in Texas, when textbooks contained only miniscule amounts of information on Asian, African, or Latin American history. Since the 1960s, simple exclusion has become less and less central to the operation of Eurocentrism in the World History course. Chapters 2 and 3 confirmed that Eurocentrism through content exclusion has been significantly reduced over the past several decades. Simply adding content, however, does not by itself solve the problem of Eurocentrism. This is because Eurocentrism can also be embedded within interpretive frameworks, even (perhaps especially) when speaking of the world outside of Europe and North America. At the root of textbook Eurocentrism lies a core assumption undergirding narratives from the 1920s through the early 21st century: that history operates in a linear fashion, and Western countries are further along in historical development than other nations. European and North American histories are universal or ‘normal,’ and other regions of the world must struggle to catch up to the front line of historical progress.1 For World History textbooks in Texas, supporting this assumption involves an entire lexicon of terms emphasizing historical deficiency. Non-Western societies were primitive, backward, modernizing, or developing, with little distinction made between technological developments and political, economic, and social structures. This is reminiscent of Edward Said’s characterization of Orientalism as embracing “flexible positional superiority.”2 Here it is important to note that Europe is vitally important to world history and should of course be included in any secondary level course. DOI: 10.4324/9781003323785-4

Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains  89 Indeed, many economic, technological, political, and social developments that have fundamentally altered the human condition began or were accelerated in Europe, especially over the past 500 years. The trouble with Eurocentrism is not the inclusion of European history, it is the assumption that European history is a historical litmus test by which the rest of the world can be measured and judged. This is, of course, not a problem limited to Texas textbooks or to secondary education. The historical discipline as a whole as it emerged in the 19th century reflected Eurocentric paradigms, which continue to be influential today. The American Historical Review, for instance, claims to represent the discipline as a whole but has struggled to publish nonWestern histories, particularly on topics before the 18th century. Past editor Michael Grossberg noted in 2000 that “a quick look at the AHR list of book reviews or a scan of the AHA Directory reveals, the discipline is dominated numerically and in terms of scholarly production by historians of North America and modern western Europe.”3 Anthropologist and historian Daniel Segal argues that solving this problem requires the development of an all-new paradigm of history that does not situate the ‘West’ as the focal point of historical development.4 This chapter explores Eurocentric interpretive frameworks embedded within Texas World History textbook narratives in three sections. The first shows that a linear conception of history privileging Europe has been and continues to be a bedrock guiding assumption for depictions of the contemporary world in Texas World History textbooks. The section examines the prevalence of dichotomous binaries such as traditional/ modern, and how these terms remain firmly embedded in textbook narratives. The second and third sections highlight two historical case studies that illustrate how Eurocentrism operates in action. Section 2 explores narratives of decline that permeate World History textbook depictions of the Ottoman Empire. Section 3 explores World History narratives of modern Japan as they industrialized in the late 19th century. The chapter demonstrates that contemporary Texas World History textbooks have mostly abandoned racially tinged pejorative language, and are far more inclusive than their predecessors, but they continue to operate within a Eurocentric paradigm.

The Tenacity of Eurocentric Historical Thinking World History textbooks have for the past century treated the West as the culmination of a linear progression of history.5 Non-Western societies, by contrast, are only rarely treated as having their own unique historical trajectory. Textbooks portray them as at an earlier, less developed stage of development. The terminology used to describe this has evolved considerably from the first generation of World History textbooks in Texas, which routinely chastised ‘primitive’ or ‘savage’ Africa, and ‘ancient’ or ‘sleepy’

90  Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains Asia. The idea that history moves forward in a Westward line of progress is almost never stated outright, yet nevertheless provides an essential underpinning for the operation of Eurocentrism in Texas World History textbooks from the 1920s through the present day. The first generation of textbooks recommended for use in Texas World History courses dedicated almost all of their attention to European history with a metanarrative of the rise of civilization.6 Our World Today and Yesterday, a book co-authored by the influential thinker James Harvey Robinson, claimed to trace “the manner in which the human race has worked itself up from the state of a wild, naked, and houseless hunter” to the “marvels of human ingenuity which now surround us on every side.”7 In other words, the authors carefully selected content to demonstrate a linear development of civilization, which they assumed culminated in the contemporary cultures of Europe and North America. This approach is commonly known as a Western Civilization approach, which became popular in the 1920s as a staple feature of college curricula in the United States. In general, proponents of Western Civilization took the superiority of European and North American civilization over other global cultures as a given.8 As demonstrated in Chapter 2, the World History course in Texas borrowed heavily from the Western Civilization model, but also developed a unique focus of its own. In the 1930s, Texas World History textbook authors routinely claimed that European history was insufficient, and that students needed a working knowledge of non-Western territories in an increasingly interdependent world. Jesse Wrench’s 1938 The March of Civilization, for instance, accepted the idea of the progressive development of history, stating that history was “directing itself toward a single channel.”9 But though the ‘march of civilization’ centered on European and North American history, Wrench claimed that World History needed to include Asian history, since it had “important contributions to make.”10 Similarly, textbook author Edwin Pahlow suggested in 1938 that the “white man’s world” was the most important from a Euro-American viewpoint, but that other parts of the world were “now beginning to wake up,” and therefore needed to be included in the textbook narrative.11 The contemporary relevance of the non-Western world necessitated its (marginal) inclusion in World History textbooks.12 The highschool World History course in Texas imposed a Western civilizational model on the entire globe, evaluating the contributions and contemporary realities of non-Western societies insofar as they were considered relevant to the Western experience. Post-World War II Texas World History textbooks continued the trend of selectively incorporating non-Western cultures when they embraced Western ways. The 1947 book World History by Arthur Boak, Preston Slosson, and Howard Anderson, for instance, acknowledged that they chose to not include a full account of Asian history. Instead, “China,

Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains  91 India, and other East Asiatic cultures” were “discussed at the points where they made contact with Western civilization.”13 The 1952 textbook World History: The Struggle for Civilization claimed that modern imperialism spread European culture so far and wide that the history of Europe “became merged with world history.”14 According to these articulations, non-Western societies could enter into history only after they adopted European or Western culture. Once the rest of the world became ‘Europeanized,’ events outside of Europe and North America were thought to become part of world history.15 By the 1960s, as decolonization resulted in a dizzying array of newly independent countries, high school-level World History advocates began pushing for enhanced attention to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Writing in a yearbook for the National Council of the Social Studies, Mark Krug forcefully claimed that including these territories only from a Western viewpoint was “not only arrogant but also outdated.”16 Krug bemoaned the lack of available sources for World History teachers with a truly global perspective, and warned against the danger of simply tacking on non-Western content to existing narratives, which would be “no more a study of the history of mankind than the teaching of the histories of the fifty states of the Union would constitute the study of the United States of America.”17 Ultimately, however, this is exactly what transpired. Textbook authors responded to criticisms of the imbalanced approach that had predominated since the emergence of the World History course by adding in additional content on the newly independent nations. Total content covering non-Western regions of the world jumped from 19% in the 1961 adoption period to 35% in the 1971 Texas World History adoption period.18 But while additional content undeniably led to more positive treatment of non-Western peoples, underlying interpretive frameworks continued to privilege the West. Responding to decolonization and criticisms of the course, World History textbook authors in Texas began to reshape their narratives about the non-Western world. The 1961 text The History of Our World, for instance, declared that “with its vast undeveloped resources…Africa may well be the continent of tomorrow.”19 According to the authors, one of the major impediments to progress was the difference between Africans who “have had opportunities to learn Western ways” and those who “have a more backward way of life.”20 Because of this perceived ‘backwardness,’ African nations needed continued foreign assistance to reach their full potential.21 This interpretation illustrates a new narrative for World History textbooks developed in the 1960s and dominant by the 1970s. Authors depicted non-Western nations positively, as places brimming with promise for the future. To reach that promise, however, they needed continued Western assistance, and to shed their ‘ancient’ ways in favor of Westernized cultural, technological, and social institutions.

92  Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains In other words, the potential of the non-Western world hinged on their becoming Western. By the 1970s, Texas World History textbooks rarely referred to nonWestern nations as backward or primitive anymore. Instead, they were ‘developing’ or ‘modernizing.’ Textbooks began referring to changes in non-Western societies as a contest between older traditions and more modern, and therefore universally preferable, ways. These concepts relied on a nebulous distinction between modern or developed nations, almost always from Europe or North America, and the modernizing or developing world, almost always from Asia, Africa, or Latin America. A 1983 textbook, for instance, argued that newly decolonized nations embarked upon a great struggle of “transforming their ancient civilizations into modern nations.”22 Textbook authors and publishers thus accommodated greater content on the non-Western world while simultaneously keeping the Eurocentric linear conception of history intact. Embracing historical linearity allowed textbooks to explain the continued poverty of non-Western regions without confronting Europe’s colonial, military, and diplomatic actions that resulted in the relative impoverishment of much of the world, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries. This trope is particularly noticeable in textbook depictions of Africa. Gerald Leinwand’s 1977 work The Pageant of World History, for instance, argued that it was not until World War II that the people of the Middle East and Africa were “awakened” to “their glorious past, the perils of the present, and the promise of the future.”23 Because they had only been ‘awake’ for such a short period of time, African peoples needed centuries to “sink deep roots into a national history.”24 Tragic catastrophes were to be expected as “the price paid for inexperience and haste.”25 In 2016, Jackson Spielvogel and Jay McTighe’s World History made a nearly identical argument: As Africa evolves, it is important to remember that economic and political change is often a slow and painful process. Introduced to industrialization and ideas of Western democracy only a century ago, African societies are still looking for ways to graft Western political institutions and economic practices onto indigenous structures still influenced by traditional values and attitudes.26 Spielvogel and McTighe justify the lack of power and wealth in Africa as the inevitable result of the continent’s late start to Westernization. Texas World History textbooks today will discuss to a limited degree the damage done by centuries of slave-trading and the devastation of colonization in the Scramble for Africa, but these discussions are typically relegated to the colonial past, and therefore often disconnected from considerations of the contemporary realities of African nations in the 21st century.

Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains  93 Terms like development or modernization are usefully vague, allowing for clear distinctions to be made between Western nations and nonWestern nations without using overtly Eurocentric terminology, all while maintaining a positive tone when describing the trajectory of non-Western regions. The 2003 textbook World History: Connections to Today, for instance, argued that newly decolonized nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America can all be classified as part of the developing world. They shared common goals, especially the goal of “modernization: which meant building stable governments and developing their countries economically.”27 In the 1999 textbook World History: The Human Odyssey, modernity was explicitly linked with the West in the glossary.28 The entry referenced a section in the textbook claiming that “to many people, modernization meant westernization,” especially the adoption of democracy and free-market capitalism.29 The author later explained that economic modernization of China, for instance, “combined a modern industrial state with traditional Chinese values of hard work and obedience.”30 Modern equaled western, and could only be imitated by non-Western cultures still steeped in ‘tradition.’ The increasingly in vogue concepts of modernization, development, and westernization lacked any conceptual depth in Texas World History textbooks. This trend is most easily noticeable by studying textbook glossaries, which became standard by the 1984 adoption period. The 1990 text World History: Peoples and Nations defined a developed nation as “a nation with a high degree of economic sophistication,” and a developing nation as one “with limited resources and rapid population growth,” even though many non-Western nations are, in fact, resource rich.31 The 1999 text World History: Patterns of Interaction made a different distinction. Developed nations possessed “all the facilities needed for the advanced production of manufactured goods,” compared to developing nations in which “the process of industrialization was not yet complete.”32 In the most recent adoption period of 2016, Elizabeth Ellis and Anthony Esler explained the ways in which development altered traditional economies. Traditional economies relied “on habit, custom, or ritual and tend not to change over time.” Development, therefore, involved “building stable governments, improving agriculture and industry, and raising the standard of living.”33 For Ellis and Esler, historical timelessness was a key feature of the traditional world, whereas developed countries embraced historical movement. An analysis of these inadequate definitions of development reveals a set of ever-shifting economic, social, and political hurdles that ‘ancient’ or ‘traditional’ countries must overcome to join the ‘modern’ and ‘developed’ world. Despite widespread use of the terms modern or modernization within the body of their textbooks, more than 80% of Texas World History textbooks do not even provide a definition of the term, and the definitions that do exist are nebulous at best.34 In 1984 and again in 1990,

94  Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains Burton Beers defined modernization as the “creation of a stable society capable of producing a high level of goods and services.”35 In recent decades, there are very few textbooks that note any distinction or tension between modernization and westernization. In 1990, Ross Dunn and the co-authors of the text Links Across Time and Place explained that “to retain traditional values, leaders of developing nations face a difficult task. They try to bring the benefits of modernization to their nations without destroying the legacy of the past.”36 The text utilized dichotomous thinking, but also acknowledged that engaging in Western political, economic, and social practices caused social upheaval. On the whole, however, Texas World History textbooks deploy these terms with little nuance, continuing to embed Eurocentric historical thinking into contemporary texts. While not as overt as the earliest generations of textbooks that utilized terminology like primitive, savage, or backward, the concept of linear history continues to unproblematically treat European and North American history as universal, or ‘normal.’ This prevents a more nuanced historical examination of the connections between the major economic, technological, political, and social inequalities that persist in the world today. The next sections demonstrate how these Eurocentric assumptions distort textbook narratives using two case studies, the Ottoman Empire and Meiji Japan.

The Never-Ending Decline of the Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire does not fit easily into standard textbook narratives of world history. The empire rose to prominence in the early modern period with the conquest of Constantinople in the year 1453. They were a power in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, three areas that are usually treated separately in World History textbooks. But it was their control of European territories that made them so problematic. World History textbooks often emphasized a dichotomy between a modern Europe committed to western science and representative government, and traditional societies across the non-Western world trapped in an ageless premodern existence.37 Despite their immense strength in the 16th and 17th centuries, their periodic efforts at reform and revitalization in the 18th and 19th centuries, and their impressive military abilities during the First World War, the Ottoman Empire frequently fell through the cracks of World History textbook narratives in Texas.38 When the Ottoman Empire does appear in Texas World History textbooks, a narrative of decline nearly always features prominently. Over the decades, World History textbooks have included additional information on the Ottomans, reduced the use of stereotyped descriptions of Ottoman peoples, and increased their sensitivity toward Ottoman culture. But the narrative of perpetual decline persists and is a fundamental

Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains  95 feature of Texas World History textbook depictions of the Ottoman Empire. Before exploring the narrative of perpetual decline within the Ottoman Empire, I should note its ahistorical nature. In the first place, textbooks point to decline far too early. By the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was indeed at a military disadvantage relative to several industrializing European nation-states. But World History textbooks tend to date the decline of the Ottoman Empire beginning in the 16th or 17th centuries, a time well before they were at a disadvantage to European powers in virtually any category. Indeed, the Ottomans were still invading Europe as late as 1683. To date, Ottoman decline from the era of Suleiman I (r. 1520–1566), the most accomplished Ottoman leader, is especially problematic. Historian of the Middle East Djene Bajalan put it like this: “The Ottoman state proved highly adaptive, and its culture remained dynamic. Indeed, within Ottoman studies, it is no longer permissible to speak of ‘decline’ in an absolute sense. Instead, scholars think in terms of change and transformation.”39 A second reason to question the narrative of decline is that it is applied unevenly. Other European powers, even those that industrialized quite late or failed to keep pace with new technological developments by the 19th century, do not receive similar treatment. World History textbooks do not, for instance, discuss the ‘decline’ of Habsburg Austria in the 15th or 16th century, though that empire experienced many similar problems to the Ottoman Empire by the 19th century. The concept of decline is also undertheorized. Is decline related to technology, military ability, or does it have more to do with social cohesion, cultural flourishing, or some other characteristic? By many of these standards, the Ottoman Empire would have compared favorably to other European powers well into the 19th century. The Ottoman Constitution (1875) was drafted only four years after the German Constitution (1871), for instance. It is also important to note that the decline experienced by the Ottomans was a relative decline. It was not that the Ottomans necessarily regressed or lost something that they once had, but that other powers developed new technologies and military capabilities, especially during the Industrial Revolution. The narrative of decline first emerged in the 1920s, within just a few short years of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire by the victorious Allied powers after World War I. The first generation of textbooks either ignored or derisively dismissed the Ottoman Empire. The book Modern Times and the Living Past contained the lengthiest description. Henry Elson described the Ottoman Empire as a problem for two reasons. In the first place, he argued that “the Turk was an intruder” within Europe, since their “rightful home was in Asia.”40 The second issue for Elson was the Islamic religion itself, which Elson claimed was “not adapted to all climes and to modern life and progress.”41 Later on,

96  Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains the text exclaimed that the destruction of the Ottoman Empire was “one of the most gratifying results of the World War.”42 For Elson, Christianity and Europe symbolized modernity, and the Ottoman Empire was a nuisance to both. By the 1930s, intense criticism of the Ottoman Empire continued, but this criticism centered on poor government and, especially, on violence against the Christian populations of the Ottoman Empire. The texts generally focused on European Christians, especially in Southern Europe, but it is important to note that there were Copts, Syrian Christians, Anatolian Greeks, and Armenian Christians within the Ottoman Empire as well. Content on the Ottoman Empire often centered on the Balkan states. The textbook Man’s Great Adventure claimed in 1932 that “the Turkish Empire was an autocracy of the Oriental type, which was infinitely worse than the western-European type.”43 The authors of Units in World History suggested that Ottoman rule led to heavy taxation, and frequent uprisings. “The wholesale massacre of Christians, again and again, horrified the civilized world; but the rivalry between Russia and Britain prevented Europe from taking drastic action to stop the massacres.”44 In this case, the author used ‘the civilized world’ to refer to Europe, which is historically ironic since complex civilizations in the Middle East predated those of Europe. Some interwar texts emphasized the religious tolerance experienced by subject peoples within the Ottoman Empire, though even these points were laced with criticisms of the violent and autocratic nature of Ottoman governance. The 1931 text Civilization in Europe pointed to brutal massacres perpetrated by the Ottomans “to terrorize the inhabitants into submission.”45 The text highlighted their “incompetence and corruption,” though it also noted the relative religious freedom permitted by the Ottoman state.46 Man’s Advancing Civilization mentioned that “the Christians were not forced to become Mohammedans or to give up their own languages, customs, or local officers. They were, however, taxed without mercy, cruelly used, and many were killed without cause.”47 Textbooks of the 1930s juxtaposed the steep decline of the Ottoman Empire with the Westernizing reforms of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in interwar Turkey. The 1934 edition of Modern Times and the Living Past claimed that Ottoman power began a steady decline in the 18th century. But following World War I, the “masterly leadership” of Mustafa Kemal was, according to the text, “doing for Turkey what Peter the Great did for Russia- Europeanizing it.”48 Similarly, The Making of Today’s World claimed that Mustafa Kemal’s work “accomplished more in ten years than many nations did in ten centuries,” and that the only modern comparison was that of Japan, “and even that did not go so fast or so far.”49 Several narratives regarding the Ottoman Empire were firmly established in Texas World History textbooks during the interwar period. First, textbooks mentioned the creation of the empire but often did so

Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains  97 only as it related to other European powers. The rise of the Ottoman Empire signified the fall of the Byzantine Empire, for instance, or was a threat to the other Christian nations of Europe. Second, though textbooks might mention Suleiman I, one of the great rulers of the Ottoman Empire, they overwhelmingly stressed decline as a fundamental feature of life under Ottoman rule. The narrative of decline permeated textbooks and served as a justification of the European dismemberment of the Ottoman state following World War I. With the Ottoman Empire gone, textbooks routinely praised Mustafa Kemal as a Westernizing hero of the newly established state of Turkey. The narrative of Ottoman decline established in the interwar period persisted for decades. The 1961, text The History of our World, for instance, first mentioned the Ottoman Empire in a section entitled “Why did the power of the Ottoman Turks decline?”50 The text explained that the Ottomans were great warriors who “adopted civilized ways” by  copying the arts and sciences of the Christians who lived in Constantinople.51 The authors claimed that decline occurred by the 18th century due to a lack of leadership and unity within the empire.52 Gerald Leinwand’s 1977 The Pageant of World History made a similar case for the decline of the Ottoman Empire, comparing Ottoman rule to the excellent leadership of Mustafa Kemal. The text argued: as ‘chief of the Turks’ Mustapha Kemal Ataturk made Turkey face west...The republic Mustapha created occupies a strategic position between East and West, and its founder, along with Sun Yat-sen and Mahatma Gandhi, ranks as one of a group of Asian leaders who broke with tradition and forced their countries to adopt new ways.53 For Leinwand, what was exceptional about Mustafa Kemal was his willingness to adopt western ideas, political structures, and culture. Westernizing figures such as Kemal made for heroic figures in the pages of Texas World History textbooks. Narratives of Turkish misrule and decline continued into the 1980s. The book Exploring World History argued that nationalism explained Turkish decline. The authors claimed that “because the people of the Balkans were so different from them, the Turkish rulers treated them cruelly and persecuted them.”54 The 1984 text World History: A Basic Approach by Jerome Reich, Edward Biller, and Mark Krug marginalized the significance of Ottoman history in their textbook. The Ottoman Empire first appeared in a section dedicated to the Byzantine Empire, and contained no information on the nature of Ottoman rule.55 Other than in maps, the Ottoman Empire was not mentioned again for more than 200 pages of text that detailed important events in European history.56 The Ottomans next appeared in a short two-paragraph section entitled “the Turkish Empire became weakened,” which made no attempt to explain

98  Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains or discuss the reasons for the decline.57 This also skipped over a period in which western Europeans feared Ottoman military might and the possibility of being incorporated into an Islamic empire. After decades in which World History textbooks portrayed the Otto­ man Empire as a hindrance to Christian Europe, new trends began to emerge in the 1990s. In particular, some texts expanded their material on the Mughal, Ottoman, and Safavid ‘gunpowder’ empires, a term first developed by pioneering historian Marshall Hodgson two decades earlier.58 The textbook Links Across Time and Space stands out as a unique example of the work of world historians. The book provided details about the rise to prominence of the Ottoman Empire, important features of Ottoman governance, the Ottoman military, and even an exploration of the flourishing of Ottoman culture in the 15th and 16th centuries.59 The authors concluded that: “despite these troubles, the state remained a powerful force in world affairs in the seventeenth century. The empire remained intact, influencing the politics of Europe and the Middle East.”60 In other words, though Links Across Time and Space took note of problems within the Ottoman state, the textbook did not fall into the narrative of decline so common to World History textbook depictions of the Ottoman Empire. Other textbooks of the 1990s similarly bolstered their coverage of the Ottoman Empire, but Links Across Time and Space proved to be an outlier in resisting the trope of decline, which remained embedded within most World History textbooks in Texas. The 1990 textbook History of the World contained an entire section on the history of the Ottoman and Safavid Empires in the early modern period. But the account ended with a subsection entitled “the decline of the Ottoman Empire,” which declared “immediately after the death of Suleiman, the empire began a long, slow decline.”61 According to this interpretation, the Ottoman Empire was therefore declining for 350 years before its ultimate end, or for the majority of its existence. Though the narrative of decline persisted, the reasons given for this decline were relatively fresh. Unlike previous generations of textbooks, History of the World did not emphasize Orientalist tropes such as extreme violence or the lasciviousness of sultans. Instead, the authors pointed to a gradual weakening of control over the provinces, poor leadership, and economic problems, especially corruption and overtaxation.62 The text also mentioned reform efforts in the 18th and 19th centuries.63 Nevertheless, the dominant narrative thread continued to revolve around decline. Expanded content on the Islamic Ottoman, Mughal, and Safavid empires became a standard feature of textbooks in the 1999 accession period, with each containing a chapter discussing these early modern empires. But in all cases, the narrative of decline persisted.64 In that accession period, the most complex and nuanced approach came from William Travis Hanes’ World History: Continuity & Change. The book

Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains  99 provided extensive coverage of Ottoman social, legal, and administrative practices, deeming the empire an “efficient imperial system,” but one that came with a flaw: It depended too much on landed expansion.65 The author concluded that once expansion halted, under the leadership of Suleiman I, the long period of Ottoman decline began.66 What makes the content in this textbook different from its contemporaries is that the text returns to the subject of decline in a later chapter. That chapter, focused on European expansion, discussed the continued cultural flourishing of arts and culture under Ottoman rule in the 17th century. But it also detailed the Ottoman inability to conquer the European city of Vienna in 1683, after which “the Ottomans never regained their former power.”67 The Ottoman Empire ceased falling through the cracks of World History textbooks by the late 1990s. Authors discussed cultural flourishing, some of the major social and political features of the empire, and better explained the extent of Ottoman power. Nevertheless, the trope of decline permeated World History textbooks in Texas. These trends established by the 1990s persist into the most recent adoption period of 2016.68 Perhaps the most striking account of the Ottoman Empire in the 2016 group of Texas World History textbooks comes from Jackson Spielvogel’s book World History. Spielvogel details the rise of Ottoman power, but as did so many other textbook authors over the past century, he pointed to decline at the apogee of Ottoman expansion. Spielvogel claimed that Ottoman decline was mostly the result of poor leadership beginning with Suleiman I, who “executed his two most able sons on suspicion of treason,” leaving only a less capable son to take over the empire upon his death.69 By the early 1600s, corruption and poor leadership led to a severe decline.70 In a note meant specifically for teachers, Spielvogel emphasized the importance of the Ottoman defeat at Vienna in 1683. He claimed that “from the moment of this loss in the late seventeenth century until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the early twentieth century, Turkish power in Europe decisively declined.”71 The unfortunate effect of the overwhelming focus on decline is to prevent a more robust historical examination of the Ottoman Empire. Most World History textbooks approved in Texas do not mention the major periods of revitalization in the Ottoman Empire, particularly the series of 19th-century reforms known as the Tanzimat. The Ottoman Empire of the early 20th century, though territorially smaller than at its height in the 17th century, was in fact highly sophisticated and capable of fielding a competitive military even in the brutal conflict of World War I. If the Ottomans had declined so relentlessly for centuries, with little growth or revitalization, how can we explain the fact that they were able to decisively defeat the mighty British Empire in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915?

100  Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains

Incomplete Imitation: Narratives of Modern Japan in Texas World History Textbooks The dominant narrative surrounding the Ottomans is one of decline, but in Japan, it is a story about a shocking ascent to world power status by  the late 19th century. From the very first moments of the course, World  History textbook authors provided interpretations of the Meiji Restoration, a period beginning in 1868 when Japan underwent a rapid process of social, economic, and cultural changes that eventually turned the island nation into the first non-Western country to successfully industrialize.72 Longstanding tropes regarding the Japanese success story emerged from the 1920s through the early 1950s, and are in many cases still present today. Textbooks of the 1920s and 1930s described this as an astonishingly successful case of Westernization, but by the late 1940s, World History textbooks began to argue that Japan’s Westernization was lacking or incomplete for various reasons. These narratives have become somewhat more nuanced in recent decades, but the idea of Japan as merely an imitator, and perhaps not a totally successful one at that, has remained stubbornly persistent. One nearly universal trend in World History textbook depictions over the last century is a focus on the island’s isolation prior to the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry in the 1850s. Modern Times and the Living Past stated in 1921 that “Japan for ages had been a half-dormant nation. Like China it was a Mongolian land, proud and self-satisfied with its ancient civilization.”73 Within a few decades, these overtly Orientalist descriptions were no longer dominant, but the insistence on Japanese isolation remained. Anatole Mazour’s 1961 textbook Men and Nations: A World History, claimed that “from 1683 until 1854 Japan was completely isolated, refusing any contacts with the outside world.”74 Mazour, like many other textbook authors, suggested that limiting contact with Europe meant losing contact with the rest of the world.75 The trouble with this interpretation is that it is a myth. It is true that in the 16th–19th centuries the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan heavily restricted European trade and interaction. But the island nation continued to trade with China and throughout East Asia. The Tokugawa Shogunate also permitted limited but regular contact with the Dutch, so Japan was not completely isolated even from Europe.76 As one scholar recently put it, “Japan had not been closed to the outside world before 1853. Rather, the long arc of Japanese history is characterized by waves of intense international engagement.”77 In other words: Japan was not isolated from the world. Japanese leaders simply chose to limit their exposure to Europe. But even the most recent Texas World History textbooks struggle to accurately convey the qualified nature of Japanese isolation. The 2016 book World History by Elizabeth Ellis and Anthony Esler, for instance,

Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains  101 states without qualification that Japan “remained isolated for more than 200 years” during the Tokugawa Shogunate.78 The 2016 text Texas World History published by Houghton Mifflin begins its content on the modernization of Japan by contradicting itself. The opening sentence suggests that Japan had “shut itself off from almost all contact with other nations.” But the very next paragraph qualifies this by saying that contact was only limited with the industrial nations, and that the Japanese maintained contact with China, Indonesia, and Korea. Even this makes little sense, as Japan restricted contact with Europeans well before industrialization took place.79 The linguistic gymnastics involved here are telling, and perhaps necessary to uphold the heroic status of Commodore Perry. Textbook authors regard contact with Europe as meaningful, but contact with other nations as far less significant. Since they assumed that Japan was isolated until the mid-19th century, the great question for World History textbook authors was how Japan could emerge from this isolation to the status of a great power within a period of fewer than 40 years by the end of the 19th century? The earliest World History textbooks in Texas attributed Japanese success entirely to their imitation of the West. For instance, following Commodore Perry’s ‘opening up’ of the island nation, Henry Elson’s 1921 textbook argued that “Japan absorbed the best of modern civilization and rose to the position of a first-class power with a rapidity unknown before in history.”80 The 1924 text Our World Today and Yesterday suggested that: The Japanese decided that they must acquaint themselves with European science and inventions if they hoped to protect themselves against European encroachments....Factories were built, several thousand miles of railroad were constructed, and Japan was pretty thoroughly modernized within a generation.81 Like many Texas World History textbooks, Our World Today and Yesterday and Modern Times and the Living Past used the words European, Western, and modern interchangeably. Japan’s success was entirely attributed to their emulation of European practices. Texas World History textbooks of the 1930s similarly praised Japan’s rapid ascent based on the imitation of European economic and social practices. The 1937 text On the Road to Civilization argued that the Meiji Restoration marked the acceptance of “the West as her [Japan’s] schoolmaster.”82 Similarly, Man’s Great Adventure claimed that Japanese military success during the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) showcased Japan’s arrival as a “modern world power.” The author, Edwin Pahlow, said that Japan’s success “demonstrated to the world that Asiatics could equip and operate modern armies, navies, factories, and railways- and everything else that belonged to a Western industrial state- as effectively as Westerners could.”83 Pahlow suggested that the Japanese example

102  Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains inspired other Asian societies to emulate their success by embracing westernization. By the 1930s Japanese imperial expansion into China became an increasingly significant matter in world affairs, and therefore merited additional treatment in World History textbooks. Comparisons between the two East Asian countries generally found China wanting. For J. Salwyn Schapiro and Richard B. Morris, China “had remained stationary for centuries, and so became old and decayed,” whereas the Japanese, who were “more lively, keen-witted, and more alert than the rather stolid Chinese” realized the need for Westernization far earlier.84 The 1935 text World History similarly argued that “while Japan was thus Europeanizing herself, China remained scornful of western civilization and changed but little.”85 Critically, most World History textbooks approved in Texas during the 1930s argued that Japanese imperial expansion was a natural consequence of Japan’s crash course in Westernization. For Schapiro and Morris, Japan’s staggeringly swift adoption of Western ways meant that “soon she [Japan] became as aggressive and imperialistic as the European powers.”86 The authors discussed Japan’s imperial ambitions in China as yet another sign of the Japanese imitation of Western civilization. Albert Heckel and James Sigman argued in a 1937 textbook that Japan’s Europeanization was “one of the most astonishing developments in history. Japan adopted the aggressive foreign policy of her European teachers and set to work to make herself a world power.”87 For most World History textbooks of the 1930s imperialism was simply a manifestation of world power status practiced by the most significant European states. Japan’s imperial ambition, while perhaps worrisome, was not a reason to doubt the genuine nature of Japanese Westernization. The 1935 textbook The Making of Today’s World by R.O. Hughes contained an alternative interpretation. Like most other textbooks of the decade, The Making of Today’s World argued that Japanese imperialism was an example of imitation, but Hughes saw this as an imitation of the darker side of European culture. “She [Japan] has also learned some of their [the ‘white’ nations of Europe] bad practices; and when the western nations criticize Japan unfavorably, she can tell them they have done the same things many a time.”88 Japan made major strides forward in technological and economic sophistication, but the Japanese “may not realize that the rest of the world has also lifted its own standards of international relations during that time.” Hughes warned of the “fanatical patriotism” that was key to Japanese traditional culture.89 In other words, some ‘traditional’ elements of Japanese culture remained, making their imitation of the West incomplete and, in fact, dangerous. After World War II, World History textbook authors quickly called into question the interwar narrative of the successful Westernization of Japan. Texas textbooks of the late 1940s made the case that Japan’s

Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains  103 Westernization in the 19th and early 20th centuries was incomplete, and that the traditional or primitive attitudes of ‘ancient’ Japan persisted into the 20th century. Various reasons were given to explain this supposed deficiency. One interpretation suggested that Japan advanced too swiftly. The 1947 text Story of Nations, for instance, explained it this way: “in absorbing so much in a hurry, it was as if Japan sprang out of childhood into maturity all at one jump…She has mastered the machines of the West- but has retained the attitudes of her medieval feudalism.”90 Another interpretation suggested that Westernization fundamentally contradicted traditional elements of Japanese life. The World’s History said that Japan had industrialized but had failed to democratize, largely because of the ‘ancient’ practice of emperor worship. With no sense of democratic right to share in the government, he [the average Japanese citizen] looked up to the ancient samurai code which called for blind loyalty to a leader…With none of the West’s breezy admiration for the new, he held following his ancestors’ ways to be all-important.”91 Whereas World History textbooks of the 1930s usually explained Japanese imperial expansion as a manifestation of Westernization, textbooks a decade later saw the same phenomena as a sign of the continuation of Japan’s feudal tradition of fanatical loyalty to the emperor. Since textbooks in the postwar era linked Westernization with the global diffusion of democracy, this was an easy way to ‘other’ the Japanese case. Textbooks of the 1950s and 1960s similarly framed Japanese history as a battle between modern Western ways and older, problematic elements of Japanese culture. William Habberton and Lawrence Roth argued, for instance, that the astonishing transformation of Japan in the late 19th century was “mostly on the surface. Underneath the veneer of modern ways, there was a passionate devotion to ideas and practices that were distinctly medieval.”92 The 1969 text Exploring World History argued simply that Japan had become a modern nation “almost overnight,” but, critically, “the Japanese did not give up their Shinto religion or the worship of the emperor.”93 For Ethel Ewing, the history of Japan was the story of a struggle between enlightened, democratic modernizers, and militaristic adherents of traditional feudalism. The military faction that gained control in the 1930s were “descendants of feudal knights” whose families “reminded them over and over that their ancestors belonged to the superior warrior class.”94 Ewing discussed at some length the efforts to democratize Japan after the Second World War, but also ended with a warning that “there was a swing back toward some of the older ways” that might endanger Japan’s complete embrace of peaceful democracy.95 For T. Walter Wallbank, the lack of democracy in Japan was actively being addressed by the American occupation. The American

104  Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains focus following the Second World War was to “break down the old divine and absolute rule of the Emperor and military,” and establish democracy for the long term.96 It is worth pausing for a moment to problematize these interpretations in two important respects. In the history of humanity, there has only been one completely original and unprecedented Industrial Revolution, that of England in the 18th and 19th centuries.97 Literally every other country to experience industrialization has, in some measure, imitated practices begun elsewhere. This is not to deny that Japan borrowed heavily from British, German, and American examples in the late 19th century, but to more properly situate this process in a historical context reminiscent of earlier periods of “intense technological borrowing.”98 Technological, cultural, social, and political appropriation is normal in world history. A second and perhaps even more significant point is that industrialization does not necessitate becoming a carbon copy of a European or North American nation-state. When looked at historically, industrializing societies modify the social, economic, and political structures necessary to experience an Industrial Revolution to suit pre-existing cultures and traditions.99 Recent research reveals that, far from simply imitating Western forms of imperialism, Japan was an active agent and international leader in the ‘New Imperialism’ of the late 19th century.100 The Meiji Restoration was not an example of slavish imitation, but rather a story of creative adaptation.101 By the 1990s, the words modern and modernization became more common than West or Westernization when describing late 19th century Japan. Burton Beers suggested in 1990 that the Meiji period marked a transformation from “a feudal state into a modern industrial nation.”102 The word ‘Western’ or ‘Westernization’ does not appear in this narrative, but ‘modern’ and ‘modernizing’ function in nearly an identical capacity. By the 1999 accession period, three out of four assigned texts refer to this process primarily as modernization rather than as Westernization.103 The most recently approved World History textbooks in Texas from 2016 present additional nuance to the Meiji Restoration, but also continue to embrace long-established tropes as well. Two of the texts, Texas World History published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and World History by Elizabeth Ellis and Anthony Esler, presented Japanese history as a story of successful modernization. Ellis and Esler praised the swiftness of Japanese modernization, providing specific reasons for Japanese success.104 Both texts carefully avoided suggesting that Japan slavishly imitated Western nations by embracing the concept of modernization. The crucial realization came about when “the Meiji emperor realized that the best way to counter Western influence was to modernize.”105 As has been the case for the past century of World History textbook interpretations, the concepts of Westernization and modernization were used

Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains  105 interchangeably throughout the book. Both texts also portrayed Japanese imperial expansion as a parallel to Western nations. Ellis and Esler suggested that national pride was a key motivating force for Japanese imperialism, stating that “the Japanese were determined to show the world that they were a powerful nation.”106 The Houghton Mifflin Harcourt text, by comparison, emphasized the economic desire for raw materials, explaining that “as in Western industrial nations, Japan’s economic needs fed its imperialist desires.”107 While two of the 2016 texts emphasized the Meiji Restoration as a story of modernization, Jackson Spielvogel and Jay McTighe’s text World History fully embraced the narrative of incomplete modernization. The authors declared that Japan was “modern in external appearance” but “was still traditional because power remained in the hands of a ruling oligarchy.”108 Despite major changes to Japan’s economy and society, the authors suggested that ‘traditional’ values continued to permeate Japanese culture well into the 20th century. As evidence, they pointed to the lack of a full franchise for women in the 1889 constitution.109 This was an obvious double-standard since the text faults an Asian nation for something that many Western countries had also not accomplished at that time. From the year 1889, British women had to wait 29 years to gain the right to vote, American women 31 years (76 years for most non-white American women), and French women waited more than 50 years before enfranchisement. Over the last century, Texas World History textbooks consistently and problematically framed the Meiji Era as a victory of modern or Western culture over the older, stagnant, and traditional culture of Japan. Indeed, Japanese success was most often attributed directly to European or North American nations rather than to the Japanese themselves, who merely ‘imitated’ these more modern nations. Following the Second World War, World History textbook authors in Texas developed a new facet of this interpretation. Textbooks of the late 1940s claimed that Japan’s successful Westernization was only superficial and that the island nation lacked the characteristics of a truly Western or modern nation. These areas of deficiency were usually ascribed to the preservation of ‘traditional’ Japanese culture and norms. In sum, World History narratives in Texas have embraced a double standard regarding the Meiji Era: When Japan was successful, the West received the credit. And where Japan failed, Japanese traditional culture was to blame.

Conclusion This chapter confirms the persistence of Eurocentric interpretive frameworks in Texas World History textbooks that numerous critics have pointed out.110 Narratives are often based on a linear concept of historical

106  Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains development that privileges the European historical experience. When applied to non-Western nations, this leads to troublesome narratives of decline as in the case of the Ottoman Empire, or an incomplete ascent, as in the case of Japan. In each case, the measuring stick by which these nations are judged is (western) European. But though Eurocentrism persists, it is also important to note that it has become far more covert than in previous decades, a fact that is sometimes missed by scholarly critics. The language and tone of textbook coverage of non-Western peoples slowly improved since the creation of the course. The earliest World History textbooks in Texas openly accepted the superiority of Western culture and scorned the ‘primitive’ or ‘savage’ practices of the non-Western world. Such language is no longer acceptable. Instead, Eurocentrism persists in the widespread use of the terms modern and modernization, terms that continue to be used interchangeably with the concepts of Western/ Westernization in Texas World History textbooks. At the root of this problem is a core assumption that the Western societies of Europe and North America are perpetually at the forefront of history, despite historical vicissitudes. The implicit acceptance of a Eurocentric linear version of history distorts Texas World History textbooks in numerous ways. As Daniel Segal points out, in many cases, it casts whole societies and people groups as fundamentally without history. Segal argues quite rightly that all of humanity “must be treated as historical,” with contingency and agency.111 But a linear conception of history also prevents a more complex narrative that the histories of Western and non-Western peoples are and have always been entangled. Theorist and historian Sanjay Seth argues that Western and non-Western peoples are all modern, and that modernity itself is a historical project. “We have all been reshaped, in different and unequal ways, by the historical forces that we gather under the concept of modernity.”112 Abandoning the linear conception of history would require a significant alteration of the organization, language, and narrative thrust of World History curricula and textbooks. Doing so would, however, lead to a far richer, more nuanced, and accurate world history.

Notes 1 See Daniel Segal, “Worlding History,” in The New World History: A Field Guide for Teachers and Researchers, eds. Ross Dunn, Laura Mitchell, and Kerry Ward (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016) 317–329; Sanjay Seth, Beyond Reason: Postcolonial Theory and the Social Sciences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). 2 Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), 15. 3 Michael Grossberg, “Taking Stock: Five Years of Editing the AHR,” Perspectives on History, September 1, 2000. https://www.historians.org/

Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains  107 publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/september-2000/takingstock-five-years-of-editing-the-ahr. For more on the ways in which modern knowledge reflects Western paradigms, see Seth, Beyond Reason. 4 Segal, “Worlding History,” 318–320. 5 For more on this, see Tadashi Dozono, “The Passive Voice of White Supremacy: Tracing Epistemic and Discursive Violence in World History Curriculum,” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 42, no. 1 (2020): 1–26. 6 For more information on textbook content decisions, see Chapter 2: History’s Orphan. 7 James Harvey Robinson, Emma Smith Peters, and James Henry Breasted, Our World Today and Yesterday: A History of Modern Civilization (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1924), 604. 8 See Gilbert Allardyce, “The Rise and Fall of the Western Civilization Course,” The American Historical Review 87, no. 3 (1982): 695–725; Daniel Segal, “‘Western Civ’ and the Staging of History in American Higher Education,” The American Historical Review 105, no. 3 (2000): 770–805. 9 Jesse Wrench, The March of Civilization: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern World (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1931), vi. 10 The author did not name specific examples of these contributions, but it is perhaps noteworthy that the book argued that these contributions were either contemporary or in the future, not confined to a distant past. Wrench, The March of Civilization, v. 11 Edwin Pahlow, Man’s Great Adventure Revised Edition (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1938), 688. 12 For more on the percentage of textbook content dedicated to non-Western topics, see Appendix C. 13 Arthur Boak, Preston Slosson, and Howard Anderson, World History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947), v–vi. 14 Emma Smith Peters, David Saville Muzzey, and Lloyd Minnie, World History: The Struggle for Civilization (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1952), 431. 15 For more on how the World History course depicted imperialism, see Chapter 5. 16 Mark M. Krug, “The Proper Study of World History,” in New Perspectives in World History, ed. Shirley Engle (Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies, 1964), 547. 17 Krug, “The Proper Study of World History,” 551. 18 This trend continued in later accession periods, with non-Western content increasing to a high point of 52% in the 1999 adoption period. See Appendix C for the full details. 19 Arthur Boak, Preston Slosson, Howard Anderson, and Hall Bartlett, The History of Our World (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961), 764. 20 Boak, Slosson, Anderson, and Bartlett, The History of Our World, 765. 21 Ibid, ibidem. 22 Burton Beers, World History: Patterns of Civilization. Teacher’s Edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983), 686. 23 Gerald Leinwand, The Pageant of World History (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1977), 606. 24 Ibid, 623. 25 Ibid, ibidem. 26 Jackson Spielvogel and Jay McTighe, World History. Teacher Edition (Bothell, WA: McGraw-Hill Education, 2016), 836. 27 Elisabeth Gaynor Ellis and Anthony Esler, World History: Connections to Today. Texas Edition (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003), 807.

108  Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains 28 Jackson Spielvogel, World History: The Human Odyssey. Texas Teacher’s Edition (Cincinnati, OH: West Educational Publishing, 1999). The definition does not appear in the 2003 version. 29 Ibid, 882. 30 Ibid, ibidem. 31 Anatole Mazour and John Peoples, World History: People and Nations (Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1990), R25. 32 Roger Beck, Linda Black, Philip Naylor, and Dahia Shabaka, World History: Patterns of Interaction (Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, Inc., 1999), 1019. The same language is repeated in the text Texas World History. Teacher’s Edition (Orlando, FL: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2016), R4. 33 Gaynor and Esler, World History: Connections to Today, 1101, 1083. 34 There are 26 World History textbooks included in this study that were published since 1984, one of which does not contain a glossary. Of the remaining 25, 22 do not define the term modernization, despite its conceptual significance to numerous World History narratives. 35 Beers, World History: Patterns of Civilization 1983, 771; Burton Beers, World History: Patterns of Civilization. Annotated Teacher’s Edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990), 880. 36 Ross Dunn, Dorothy Abrahamse, Edward Farmer, James Garvey, Denny Schillings, and David Victor, Links Across Time and Place: A World History (Evanston, IL: McDougal, Littell & Company, 1990), 763. 37 For more on the Ottoman Empire, see Djene Bajalan, “Understanding the Ottoman Empire,” World History Bulletin 37, no. 1 (2021): 5–7; Carter Findley, The Turks in World History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Julia Clancy-Smith, “The Middle East and North Africa in World History,” in The New World History, eds. Dunn, Mitchell, and Ward, 173–182. 38 See Tamer Balcı, “Islam and the Middle East in Texas Textbooks,” Digest of Middle East Studies 27, no. 2 (2018): 227–260; Gregory Delahanty, The PostOttoman Middle East in Modern World History Textbooks (EdD, Northern Illinois University, 2014). 39 Bajalan, “Understanding the Ottoman Empire,” 6. 40 Textbooks in these early decades rarely used the term Ottoman Empire. For the sake of consistency and accuracy, I use the term Ottoman Empire even when authors like Elson inaccurately referred to this power as the Turkish Empire or Turkey. Henry W. Elson, Modern Times and the Living Past (New York: American Book Company, 1921), 621. 41 Ibid, 625. 42 Ibid, 1921, 719. 43 Edwin Pahlow, Man’s Great Adventure: An Introduction to World History (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1932), 754. 44 John T. Greenan and J. Madison Gathany, Units in World History: Developments of Modern Europe (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1934), 481. 45 J. Salwyn Schapiro and Richard B. Morris, Civilization in Europe: Part I. Ancient and Medieval Times. Part II. Modern Times in Europe (Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press, 1931), 391. 46 Schapiro and Morris, Civilization in Europe 1931 edition, 392. 47 Clarence Perkins, Man’s Advancing Civilization (New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1934), 664. 48 Elson, Modern Times and the Living Past 1934 edition, 724.

Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains  109 49 R.O. Hughes, The Making of Today’s World (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1935), 778. 50 Boak, Slosson, Anderson, and Bartlett, The History of Our World 1961 edition, 642. 51 Ibid, 642. 52 Ibid, 644. 53 Leinwand, The Pageant of World History 1977 edition, 403. 54 Sol Holt and John R. O’Connor, Exploring World History (New York: Globe Book Company, 1969), 367. 55 Jerome Reich, Edward Biller, and Mark Krug, World History: A Basic Approach (San Diego: Coronado Publishers, 1984), 314–319. 56 Reich, World History: A Basic Approach. The Ottomans are not mentioned from pages 320–522. 57 Reich, World History: A Basic Approach, 526. 58 Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam Volume Three: The Gunpowder Empire and Modern Times (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974). 59 Dunn et al., Links Across Time and Place, 422–428. 60 Dunn et al., Links Across Time and Place, 428. 61 Marvin Perry, Allan Scholl, Daniel Davis, Jeannette Harris, and Theodore Von Laue, History of the World (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990), 278. 62 Ibid, ibidem. 63 Ibid, 524. 64 See the full list of included 1999 textbooks in Appendix A. 65 William Travis Hanes, World History: Continuity & Change. Texas Annotated Teacher’s Edition (Austin: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1999), 332. 66 Ibid, 337. 67 Ibid, 418, 421. 68 This analysis of the treatment of the Ottoman Empire in World History textbooks in the early 21st century has also been explored by Gregory Delahanty’s EdD thesis. Delahanty found that world history textbooks “continue to exhibit many of the same flaws that have been found by other researchers for the last 20 years.” Delahanty, The post-Ottoman Middle East in Modern World History textbooks, 126. 69 Spielvogel and McTighe, World History, 434. 70 Ibid, 434–435. 71 Ibid, 434. 72 For more on the Meiji Restoration, see: Catherine Phipps, ed., Meiji Japan in Global History (London: Routledge, 2022); Hiroshi Mitani, “Japan’s Meiji Revolution in Global History: Searching for Some Generalizations Out of History,” Asian Review of World Histories 8, no. 1 (2020): 41–57; Peter Perdue, “East Asia and Central Eurasia,” in The Oxford Handbook of World History, ed. Jerry Bentley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) 399–417; Mark Ravina, To Stand with the Nations of the World: Japan’s Meiji Restoration in World History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); Peter Stearns, The Industrial Revolution in World History. Fourth Edition (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2016), Chapter 8. 73 Elson, Modern Times and the Living Past, 614. 74 Anatole Mazour and John M. Peoples, Men and Nations: A World History (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1961), 528. 75 For more on Japan before the Meiji Restoration, see Thomas Barker, “Using World History to Teach about Premodern Japan,” Southeast Review of Asian Studies 31 (2009): 219–225.

110  Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains 76 For more on this, see Henry D. Smith II, “Five Myths About Early Modern Japan,” in Asia in Western and World History: A Guide for Teaching, eds. Ainslie Embree and Carol Gluck (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), 514–522. 77 Ravina, To Stand with the Nations of the World, 2. 78 Ellis and Esler, World History, 432. 79 Texas World History (Orlando: Houghton Mifflin, 2016), 810. 80 Elson, Modern Times and the Living Past, 614. 81 Robinson, Smith, and Breasted, Our World Today and Yesterday, 471. 82 Albert Heckel and James Sigman, On the Road to Civilization (Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1937), 772. 83 Pahlow, Man’s Great Adventure 1938 edition, 604. 84 Schapiro and Morris, Civilization in Europe, 558 and 562. 85 Carlton Hayes, Parker Moon, and John Wayland, World History (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1935), 736. 86 Schapiro and Morris, Civilization in Europe, 563. 87 Heckel and Sigman, On the Road to Civilization, 642. 88 Hughes, The Making of Today’s World 1935 edition, 650–651. 89 Ibid, 651. 90 Lester Rogers, Fay Adams, and Walker Brown, Story of Nations (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1947), 693. 91  Frederic Lane, Eric Goldman, and Erling Hunt, The World’s History (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1947), 565. 92 William Habberton and Lawrence Roth, Man’s Achievement Through the Ages (Chicago: Laidlaw Brothers, 1952), 447. 93 Holt and O’Connor, Exploring World History, 468. 94 Ethel Ewing, Our Widening World (New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1961), 130. 95 Ewing, Our Widening World, 133. 96 T. Walter Wallbank and James Quillen, Man’s Story: World History in its Geographic Setting (Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1951), 712. 97 See Patrick O’Brien, “Industrialization,” in The Oxford Handbook of World History, ed. Bentley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 304–324; 98 Ravina, To Stand with the Nations of the World, 9. 99 For a broad overview of the global process of industrialization, see Peter Stearns, The Industrial Revolution in World History. 100 John Hennessey, Rule by Association: Japan in the Global Trans-Imperial Culture, 1868–1912, PhD Dissertation, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden 2018. 101 Ravina, To Stand with the Nations of the World, 7. 102 Beers, World History: Patterns of Civilization 1990 edition, 591. 103 Hanes III’s World History: Continuity & Change is the exception. 104 The stated reasons include the homogeneity of Japanese society, the economic growth of the Tokugawa period, and experience in adapting outside cultural influences, as they had done with China throughout Japanese history. Ellis and Esler, World History, 676. 105 Texas World History, 811. 106 Ibid, 812. 107 Ellis and Esler, World History 2016 edition, 676. 108 Spielvogel and McTighe, World History, 624. 109 Spielvogel and McTighe, World History, 626. 110  See, for instance, J.M. Blaut, The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History (New York: The

Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains  111 Guilford Press, 1993); Daniel Segal, “‘Western Civ’ and the Staging of History in American Higher Education.” 111 Daniel Segal, “‘Western Civ’ and the Staging of History in American Higher Education,” 802. 112 Sanjay Seth, “Is Thinking with ‘Modernity’ Eurocentric?” Cultural Sociology 10, no. 3 (2016): 395.

Bibliography Allardyce, Gilbert. “The Rise and Fall of the Western Civilization Course.” The American Historical Review 87, no. 3 (1982): 695–725. Bajalan, Djene R. “Understanding the Ottoman Empire.” World History Bulletin 37, no. 1 (2021): 5–7. Balcı, Tamer. “Islam and the Middle East in Texas Textbooks.” Digest of Middle East Studies 27, no. 2 (2018): 227–60. Barker, Thomas W. “Using World History to Teach About Premodern Japan.” Southeast Review of Asian Studies 31 (2009): 219–25. Beck, Roger B., Linda Black, Philip C. Naylor, and Dahia Ibo Shabaka. World History: Patterns of Interaction. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell Inc., 1999. Beers, Burton. World History: Patterns of Civilization. Teacher’s. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1983. ———. World History: Patterns of Civilization. Annotated Teacher’s Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990. Blaut, J.M. The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History. New York: The Guilford Press, 1993. Boak, Arthur, Preston Slosson, and Howard Anderson. World History. Edited by William Langer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947. Boak, Arthur, Preston Slosson, Howard Anderson, and Hall Bartlett. The History of Our World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961. Clancy-Smith, Julia. “The Middle East and North Africa in World History.” In The New World History: A Field Guide for Teachers and Researchers, edited by Ross Dunn, Laura Mitchell, and Kerry Ward, 173–82. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016. Delahanty, Gregory. The Post-Ottoman Middle East in Modern World History Textbooks. EdD, Northern Illinois University, 2014. Dozono, Tadashi. “The Passive Voice of White Supremacy: Tracing Epistemic and Discursive Violence in World History Curriculum.” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 42, no. 1 (2020): 1–26. Dunn, Ross, Dorothy Abrahamse, Edward Farmer, James Garvey, Denny Schillings, and David Victor. Links Across Time and Place: A World History. Evanston, IL: McDougal, LIttell & Company, 1990. Ross Dunn, Laura Mitchell, Kerry Ward eds. The New World History: A Field Guide for Teachers and Researchers. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016. Ellis, Elisabeth Gaynor, and Anthony Esler. World History: Connections to Today. Texas Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003. Ellis, Elizabeth Gaynor, and Anthony Esler. World History. Texas Teacher’s Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc., 2016.

112  Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains Elson, Henry W. Modern Times and the Living Past. New York: American Book Company, 1921. ———. Modern Times and the Living Past. New York: American Book Company, 1934. Engle, Shirley, ed. New Perspectives in World History. Thirty-Fourth Yearbook of the National Council for the Social Studies. Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies, 1964. Ewing, Ethel. Our Widening World. Second Edition. New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1961. Findley, Carter. The Turks in World History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Greenan, John T., and J. Madison Gathany. Units in World History: Development of Modern Europe. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1934. Grossberg, Michael. “Taking Stock: Five Years of Editing the AHR.” Perspectives on History (blog), 2000. https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/ perspectives-on-history/september-2000/taking-stock-five-years-of-editingthe-ahr Habberton, William, and Lawrence Roth. Man’s Achievement Through the Ages. Chicago: Laidlaw Brothers, 1952. Hanes III, William Travis. World History: Continuity & Change. Texas Annotated Teacher’s Edition. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1999. Hathaway, Jane. “The Pitfalls and Opportunities of Hiring in Non-Western History.” Perspectives on History (blog), 2007. https://www.historians.org/ publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/february-2007/the-pitfallsand-opportunities-of-hiring-in-non-western-history Hayes, Carlton, Parker Thomas Moon, and John Wayland. World History. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1935. Heckel, Albert Kerr, and James G. Sigman. On the Road to Civilization. Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1937. Hennessey, John. “Rule by Association: Japan in the Global Trans-Imperial Culture, 1868-1912.” PhD, Linnaeus, 2018. Hodgson, Marshall. The Venture of Islam Volume Three: The Gunpowder Empire and Modern Times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. Holt, Sol, and John R. O’Connor. Exploring World History. New York: Globe Book Company, 1969. Hughes, R.O. The Making of Today’s World. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1935. Lane, Frederic C., Eric Goldman, and Erling Hunt. The World’s History. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1947. Leinwand, Gerald. The Pageant of World History. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1977. Mazour, Anatole G., and John M. Peoples. Men and Nations: A World History. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World Inc., 1961. Mazour, Anatole G. World History: People and Nations. Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1990. Mitani, Hiroshi. “Japan’s Meiji Revolution in Global History: Searching for Some Generalizations out of History.” Asian Review of World Histories 8, no. 1 (2020): 41–57. https://doi.org/10.1163/22879811-12340063.

Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains  113 O’Brien, Patrick Karl. “Industrialization.” In The Oxford Handbook of World History, edited by Jerry H. Bentley, 304–24. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pahlow, Edwin W. Man’s Great Adventure: An Introduction to World History. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1932. ———. Man’s Great Adventure, Revised Edition. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1938. Perdue, Peter C. “East Asia and Central Eurasia.” In The Oxford Handbook of World History, edited by Jerry H. Bentley, 399–417. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Perry, Marvin, Allan Scholl, Daniel F. Davis, Jeannette G. Harris, and Theodore H. Von Laue. History of the World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990. Phipps, Catherine, ed. Meiji Japan in Global History. London: Routledge, 2022. Ravina, Mark. To Stand with the Nations of the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Reich, Jerome, Edward Biller, and Mark Krug. World History: A Basic Approach. San Diego: Coronado Publishers, 1984. Robinson, James Harvey, Emma Peters Smith, and James Henry Breasted. Our World Today and Yesterday: A History of Modern Civilization. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1924. Rogers, Lester, Fay Adams, and Walker Brown. Story of Nations. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1947. Said, Edward. Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978. Schapiro, J. Salwyn, and Richard B. Morris. Civilization in Europe: Part I. Ancient and Medieval Times. Part II. Modern Times in Europe. Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press, 1931. Segal, Daniel. “‘Western Civ’ and the Staging of History in American Higher Education.” The American Historical Review 105, no. 3 (2000): 770–805. ———. “Worlding History.” In The New World History: A Field Guide for Teachers and Researchers, edited by Ross E. Dunn, Laura J. Mitchell, and Kerry Ward, 317–29. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016. ———. “Is Thinking with ‘Modernity’ Eurocentric?” Cultural Sociology 10, no. 3 (2016): 385–98. Seth, Sanjay. Beyond Reason: Postcolonial Theory and the Social Sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Smith, Emma Peters, David Saville Muzzey, and Minnie Lloyd. World History: The Struggle for Civilization. Revised Edition. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1952. Smith II, Henry D. “Five Myths About Early Modern Japan.” In Asia in Western and World History: A Guide for Teaching, edited by Ainslie T. Embree and Carol Gluck, 514–22. Columbia Project on Asia in the Core Curriculum. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1997. Spielvogel, Jackson J. World History: The Human Odyssey. Texas Teacher’s Edition. Cincinnati, OH: West Educational Publishing, 1999. Spielvogel, Jackson, and Jay McTighe. World History. Teacher Edition. Bothell, WA: McGraw-Hill Education, 2016.

114  Modernizing Heroes and Traditional Villains Stearns, Peter. The Industrial Revolution in World History. Fourth Edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2016. Texas World History. Teacher’s Edition. Orlando, FL: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2016. Wallbank, T. Walter, and James Quillen. Man’s Story: World History in Its Geographic Setting. Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1951. Wrench, Jesse E. The March of Civilization: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern World. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1931.

5 The Wake-Up Call of Empire

This chapter investigates the evolution of World History textbook depictions of empire from the 1920s through the early 21st century. I argue that textbooks in the traditional World History course approved in the state of Texas overwhelmingly associate imperialism with progress and modernity. Since World History textbooks have long explicitly or implicitly accepted the idea that modern European society was superior to all others, a dominant trope in World History textbooks is that imperialism led to ‘Europeanization,’ ‘modernization,’ ‘progress’ or provided a strong motivation to embrace Westernization. In other words, World History textbooks suggest that imperialism was a wake-up call to the world, forcing non-Western peoples out of traditional ways of living toward a more ‘modern’ existence. But despite their approval of the modernizing effects of imperialism, World History textbooks never fully accepted the rhetoric of the civilizing mission espoused by imperialists. In fact, textbook authors from the very earliest years of the World History course stridently critiqued the materialist motivations for empire, lamenting abuses in historical cases such as the Belgian Congo. More recent textbooks take a ‘balance-sheet’ approach to the study of imperialism, assessing the pros and cons of imperial conquest. From this perspective, World History textbooks portrayed imperialism as a necessary evil for the modernization of the world. Empires have been a staple form of political organization throughout human history, and have taken myriad forms over the centuries. In an exploration of the varied meanings of the word, historian Stephen Howe defined empire as an entity “formed, most often by conquest, out of a dominant ‘core’ and a dominated, often economically exploited ‘periphery,’” and maintained in many cases by violence or the threat of violence.1 This chapter focuses on what historians call the ‘new imperialism’ of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Powered by new industrial technologies, and motivated by economic, political, religious, racial, and strategic goals, the ‘new imperialism’ was far more aggressive, imposing, and demanding than that of earlier eras.2 DOI: 10.4324/9781003323785-5

116  The Wake-Up Call of Empire Recent events reveal that the legacy, memory, and history of imperialism is bitterly contested terrain. In the summer of 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement generated international activism against racist imperial figures. Statues of prominent imperialists like Belgium’s Leopold II came down.3 Controversy over the memory of colonialism rages particularly fiercely within educational institutions. In 2015, the #RhodesMustFall movement, which began in South Africa, became an international phenomenon, strikingly so at Oxford University.4 Historians of education have similarly noted the significance of imperialism in primary and secondary schools.5 To date, these findings focus mostly on European textbooks and, less frequently, on textbooks produced in formerly colonized settings. Karel Van Nieuwenhuysen argues that textbooks following the Second World War contained triumphalist accounts of the European past, which served to foster a national identity in colonizing European states.6 On the other hand, there are scholars such as Nigel Biggar and Bruce Gilley who insist on the positive impact of colonialism.7 In Australia, debates over the legacy of settler colonialism, particularly the treatment of aboriginal peoples, continue to fuel bitter history wars.8 Following new revelations about the horrors of the residential schooling system in 2021, a statue of Canadian educator Egerton Ryerson was torn down, and a movement to rename Ryerson University took on new life.9 Debates over imperial legacies have also featured in the Texas culture wars. Arguably the most significant pressure group from the Christian Right influencing the Texas textbook adoption process has been the work of Mel and Norma Gabler and their organization called Education Research Analysts.10 Guidelines from this group evaluate World History textbooks, in part, on whether they hold the following interpretation: “British rule brought peace and a common language to deeply divided India, ended or opposed suttee, and child marriage there, improved Indian health, education, and transportation systems, and merely added another caste to the existing system.”11 In other words, the influential Gabler network opposes textbook narratives that do not exhibit a triumphalist narrative of British imperialism. In his influential work The Colonizer’s Model of the World, J.M. Blaut argued that the dominant explanatory trope for imperialism was what he called Eurocentric diffusionism. He defines this term as “the notion that European civilization—‘The West’—has had some unique historical advantage, some special quality of race or culture or environment or mind or spirit, which gives this human community a permanent superiority overall other communities.”12 For Blaut, Eurocentric diffusionism became a staple feature across many disciplines and in popular discourse but was certainly a fixture in American educational settings. Blaut’s work has been criticized for some of the sweeping claims it made about the historical profession. One thing to note, though, is that Blaut developed his concepts in part by exploring World History textbooks published in

The Wake-Up Call of Empire  117 the United States. Blaut’s ideas are, therefore, highly relevant to this discussion of textbook narratives.13 This chapter reveals that the Eurocentric diffusionist narrative has indeed been a fixture of Texas World History textbooks since the 1920s. This is evident when considering typical depictions of the non-Western world, normally thought to achieve progress or modernity only by imitating or engaging with Europe. For Blaut, this amounted to a “simple justification for European colonialism” excusing the violent acquisition of imperial territories, abuses of imperial rule, and the often-traumatic process of decolonization.14 Within Texas World History textbooks, Euro­ centric diffusionism is rarely stated outright, and often operates in inconsistent ways. A textbook might make an overarching statement about the entire process of imperialism, and then make contradictory statements in sections on Asia or Africa. Nevertheless, there are powerful explanatory tropes in many World History textbooks that perpetuate a Eurocentric diffusionist narrative. This chapter is divided into two sections. Section one examines narratives of progress embedded in most World History textbook depictions of empire. In a limited way, authors often noted the problems and abuses of empire, but the overall narrative was that empire brought civilization to the uncivilized, and so can and should be seen in a positive light. This tendency to accept Eurocentric diffusionism paved the way for the marginalization of colonial violence. Though violence is sometimes acknowledged, blame is often ascribed to the colonized, or expressed passively so that blame only rarely rests with European or American powers. The second section explores textbook narratives regarding American imperial activity. Given the long history of empire-denialism in the United States, it is surprising that Texas World History textbooks closely associated American activity in the late 19th century with European imperialism. World History textbook narratives overwhelmingly praised American colonial activity, marginalizing problematic aspects of American rule in the process. Though textbooks portrayed European colonialism as a necessary evil, American imperialism frequently received praise as a benefit to the world.

World History Textbook Depictions of Imperialism Texas World History textbooks have spilled a great deal of ink on 19thand 20th-century imperialism. During the interwar period (1919–1939), textbooks focused mostly on the ways in which imperialism impacted Europe, with little consideration of non-European perspectives. The central narrative of imperialism was an economic one. James Harvey Robinson and his co-authors argued as early as 1924 that imperialism  largely resulted from the “two great forces” of manufacturers seeking  markets and Europeans seeking investment opportunities.15

118  The Wake-Up Call of Empire World History textbook authors often framed this as an inevitable process, using a wide variety of rhetorical devices to make this point. As the 1934 textbook Units in World History put it, “in order that Europe might have raw materials for its factories, and markets in which to sell its products, jungles were penetrated and savages subdued.”16 This sentence clumsily utilized the passive voice to describe the subjugation of nonEuropean peoples, thus managing to evade labeling Europeans as aggressors.17 The more typical language suggested a ‘need’ for markets and raw materials that necessitated imperial expansion.18 Using the word need implies an absolute necessity rather than a desire, implicitly justifying the European drive toward conquest. The terminology of an economic ‘need’ for imperialism persists even in recent textbooks.19 Interwar textbooks portrayed Europe as the apex of human civilization, and that imperialism was the mechanism by which it spread through­ out the world. The 1921 book World History by Hutton Webster stated this directly. Webster argued that: this movement [imperialism] gives such significance to European history. The civilization of Europe, as affected by the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Revolution, has been spread throughout the world. The languages, literatures, religions, laws, and customs of Europe have been extended to almost all mankind.20 For Webster, imperialism signified and justified the centrality of European history. Other texts expressed this sentiment with celebratory chapter titles like “How European History Merged into World History,” “The World-Wide Advance of European Civilization,” and “The Triumph of Imperialism.”21 Hutton Webster’s account also explained away the lack of democratic governance in colonized territories by emphasizing the civilizing mission. The text noted that colonization only occurred at the expense of “savage or semi-civilized peoples” in Africa and Asia, and because of their low level of civilization it was “manifestly impossible” for democratic nations to “grant self-government to their rude and backward subjects.”22 This idea was more fully explicated in Webster’s account of the British Empire. The text explained that autocracy was the norm in the British Empire, but insisted that the British ruled colonized peoples “wisely, justly, even benevolently.”23 The British Empire brought with it peace, order, education, sanitation, and abolished practices such as cannibalism. The authors claimed that the British were attempting to “train the more advanced of her native subjects in democracy.”24 Not all World History textbooks of the interwar period accepted the civilizing mission as uncritically as Hutton Webster. In fact, over the course of the 1930s, there were increasingly harsh criticisms leveled against European empires. In general, textbooks centered their critiques

The Wake-Up Call of Empire  119 on problems experienced by Europeans rather than their Asian or African subjects. By the 1939–1947 adoption period, Texas World History textbooks more closely associated imperialism with industrial competition and global conflict. In that adoption period, three out of five texts strongly associated imperialism with the dangerous power of nationalism, and blamed colonialism for the First World War.25 Carl Becker and Frederic Duncalf’s work Story of Civilization illustrates this trend. The authors argued that only the wealthy upper classes of Europe benefited from imperialism. “The mass of the people, the workers of the machines, benefited little or not at all by the colonial movement, and were either indifferent or opposed to it.”26 Though it was an unusually nuanced point to make by the textbook standards of the 1930s, it amply demonstrates an increasing tendency of pre-World War II texts to question the benefits of imperialism, at least those experienced by working-class Europeans. For Albert Heckel and James Sigman, authors of the 1937 World History textbook On the Road to Civilization, imperialism posed a grave threat to global security. The authors defined imperialism as the combination of the two driving forces of the 19th century: industrialization and nationalism. Like Becker and Duncalf’s work, On the Road to Civilization argued that the European masses benefited very little from imperialism, but supported it “through appeals to their patriotic pride in the greatness and glory of their country.”27 Industrial and national competition led to increasing aggression, and the authors placed the blame for the First World War squarely on imperial competition. In a unit entitled ‘rivalries of imperialism lead to World War,’ the authors argued that “every country had its fanatical citizens whose jingoism endangered international peace.”28 According to this interpretation, jingoistic nationalism lay at the heart of imperialism, and caused unrest and instability both in Europe and in colonized territories. By the 1930s, some textbooks began describing the negative impact of European imperialism on the non-Western world. The 1932 text Man’s Great Adventure by Edwin Pahlow admitted that there was a high degree of selfishness, cruelty, and exploitative behavior. “Far from the white man’s bearing them as a burden, they [Indigenous peoples] were bearing the white man.”29 Pahlow pointed out that the Belgian Congo was an especially dark episode in the history of imperialism. However, the text also praised “noble Catholic and Protestant missionaries” as well as “high-minded laymen, as colonial governors and judges” who “sought to carry the blessings of Western civilization to the farthest corners of the earth.”30 Pahlow argued that imperialism had a twin nature, characterized by “a selfish side and its altruistic side,”31 or, as he put it in the 1938 version of the text, “the compromise between God and Mammon.”32 But even with this more nuanced perspective, Pahlow took it as axiomatic that Western Civilization was a ‘blessing,’ as long as it was fairly passed on to non-European peoples.

120  The Wake-Up Call of Empire When applied to specific colonial case studies, the pattern of praise and criticism constructed by interwar World History textbooks looked different. The British and American empires received almost continuous praise, but authors often criticized other European empires, particularly the Belgian Congo.33 R.O. Hughes claimed that “almost every part of the British Empire…has benefited greatly from British rule.”34 One 1935 text claimed that British rule brought “considerable progress in European civilization” to India, but that the French empire “seemed to care less about Europeanizing the natives than about selling French manufacturers to them.”35 This last example is particularly instructive since it distinguished between the supposedly altruistic enterprise of ‘Europeanization,’ and the more problematic materialist motivations behind French imperialism. This trend of World History textbooks defending the British and American empires above others was long-lasting and remains evident in some textbooks today. Another trend of the 1930s was that World History textbooks took note of the global spread of nationalist activity, leading to the emergence of a new textbook trope: Imperialism sowed the seeds of its own destruction. In a section entitled “It was Bound to Happen,” the 1932 text Man’s Great Adventure argued that it was only a matter of time until “conquered peoples” would come to know “western-European ideas of nationalism.”36 According to authors Becker and Duncalf, imperialism antagonized the non-Western world. Their textbook Story of Civilization made this point forcefully when discussing the British occupation of Egypt: Under British rule the Egyptians were as well governed as Orientals were likely to be by Europeans. Life and property were safeguarded. Roads were improved. The death-rate was lowered. Schools were established. Yet the natives, most of them, were never reconciled to British rule, although they preferred British rule to that of any other European country. Were they better governed by Great Britain than they would have been by themselves? Probably. Were they better offhappier? Perhaps not, if they thought not, since ‘nothing good or evil is but thinking makes it so.’37 With this passage, Story of Civilization articulated a powerful viewpoint regarding anti-colonial nationalism. The authors presupposed the superiority of European civilization, and that European rule brought obvious benefits to non-European peoples. However, they also suggested that it was understandable that non-European peoples would resent foreign rule. This allowed for a superficial empathy with the non-Western world without ever seriously challenging the primacy of European civilization. This patronizing interpretation survived well into the post-World War II period.

The Wake-Up Call of Empire  121 Textbooks of the 1940s quickly took note of the end of formal European and American imperialism following the Second World War, a process known to historians as decolonization.38 This resulted in additional content coverage of Asia and the Middle East in the 1940s and 1950s, and rapidly increased content on Africa during the 1960s, in lockstep with the process of decolonization. But, as the next paragraphs show, incorporating decolonization did not meaningfully disrupt the Eurocentric diffusionist paradigm at the heart of World History narratives of imperialism. From the 1940s through the 1960s, there were three overarching features of textbook depictions of decolonization in Texas World History textbooks: that it was premature, inevitable, and signified the spread of Western ideas. Consider the 1947 text World History, which framed the immense changes in Asia and the Middle East as a story of non-Western territories raising their level of civilization. The authors claimed that independence was premature because the transformation to European-style civilization remained incomplete. In the case of Egypt, the text claimed that the British brought enormous civilizing benefits, but that Egyptians were nevertheless unhappy with foreign rule. They concluded that, “many a nation would rather be badly governed by its own native chiefs than well governed by alien officials.”39 This condescending statement presumed European superiority over the non-Western world, but, in line with trends first established in the 1930s, also portrayed anti-colonial nationalism as an understandable reaction to foreign rule. Texas World History textbook authors also claimed that decolonization was inevitable. Using Orientalist terminology, the authors of 1947’s World History said that “the ancient civilizations of Asia have apparently cast off European control for good and all.” World War II only sped up a process “which must in any event have come within a few decades.”40 Depicting decolonization as an inevitability became an even more pronounced trend in the 1950s. R.O. Hughes said that “it is evident that colonial empires such as the world has seen in the past are out of date, or fast becoming so.”41 Descriptions of nationalism in the non-Western world as a natural phenomenon with words like surge, fire, or wave became quite common in World History textbooks. They had the effect of explaining the vast power of nationalist movements, without providing real agency to non-Western peoples.42 The inevitability of decolonization was simply another way of expressing a linear concept of history toward progress, frequently framed as the triumphant spread of European ideals.43 This point was clearly articulated in William Habberton and Lawrence Roth’s 1952 text Man’s Achievement Through the Ages. For Haberton and Roth, “imperialism, though often harsh and grasping, brought Western ideas of independence

122  The Wake-Up Call of Empire and democracy to many parts of the world.”44 They continued by saying: the demand for national identity and independence was itself a result of Westernization. Imperialism, by bringing Western ideas of nationalism and democracy to the East, had started a process of historic change, a deep ferment which is still taking place.45 When discussing British India, one 1977 text said that “the British were more responsible than the Indians” for the growth of nationalism, since they “allowed freedom of speech, press, and religion.”46 Post-World War II World History textbook authors developed the idea that the end of empire signified the triumphant expansion of European civilization, largely through the diffusion of nationalism. The 1970 state curriculum guide for World History contained new requirements to include non-Western content, but textbooks continued the intensely Eurocentric treatment of Asian, African, and Latin American peoples in their textbooks. The work The Shaping of Western Society, written by John Good from Carnegie Mellon University, illustrates this point. This was the first book approved for the state of Texas since the 1930s that described itself as a work of Western history rather than of world history.47 In an essay called ‘the diffusion of the West,’ the textbook argued that “Western impact usually brings an end to ancient cultures, while simultaneously heralding a new style of life, not wholly western but different from the ageless patterns that had characterized village life.”48 Here again, non-Western peoples had little agency in this process, and were not the real actors on the world historical stage. The only real choice they had was how to modify their own cultures to accommodate Western Civilization. Even the pioneering authors of the global history movement largely accepted this Eurocentric diffusionist narrative of Western Civilization. The textbook A Global History of Man, written by Leften Stavrianos and a group of his colleagues from Northwestern, argued that decolonization signaled the triumph of Western Civilization. The book divided human history since 1500 C.E. into three sections all focused on Europe: ‘Europe unites the world,’ ‘Europe dominates the world,’ and ‘Europe’s decline and triumph.’49 The Western innovations of industrialization, science, and modern political organization were “awakening millions of people in all parts of the world.”50 Western civilization, according to the text, was the main engine of human history over the previous five centuries. The inevitability, prematurity, and Western explanation of decolonization became dominant in World History textbooks from the 1940s through the 1970s, with significant ramifications. For one thing, this narrative stripped the non-Western world of historical agency. Non-Western peoples simply received Western culture, with predictably inevitable

The Wake-Up Call of Empire  123 results. Relatedly, these tropes made the case that anti-colonial nationalists simply imitated Western culture, rather than that they created anything unique. Finally, the trope lent itself to development discourse in the 1950s and 1960s.51 Habberton and Roth, for instance, argued that the peoples of the East wanted the benefits of Western civilization, increasingly referred to as ‘development’ or ‘modernization,’ which they had not fully received under imperial control. The West, therefore, could “win the friendship of the East only by offering unselfish help,” in the form of development projects.52 Post-World War II textbook content remained embedded in a Euro­ centric interpretive framework, but also took the problems of the newly decolonized world, and the legacy of imperialism, more seriously than textbooks of the interwar era. Textbooks provided additional coverage to previously marginalized areas like Africa than before.53 Take, for instance, the description of progress in Africa from a 1961 textbook The History of Our World. The authors emphasized the destabilization of traditional societies, the problems of rapid urbanization, and discrimination that many Africans faced under European rule.54 The text continued: Progress, however, was painfully slow. Africa was so vast and such great needs existed among so many people that the good effects of the coming of Europeans were often outweighed by the bad. In spite of the efforts of unselfish missionaries, doctors, and teachers, most Africans continued to follow primitive ways of living, and most of Africa remained a ‘dark’ continent up to the time of World War II.55 The authors readily acknowledged that European imperialism was disruptive and deeply painful to Indigenous Africans. But it was the ‘primitive ways of living’ that truly bedeviled Africa, so much so that the civilizing efforts of Europeans were not enough to make a meaningful impact during the era of European rule. Since the late 1970s, Texas World History textbooks have become more uniform in response to the initiation of standards first known as the Texas Essential Elements.56 Information on imperialism now comes in several distinct places in textbooks, and the new organization leads to more nuanced, but also more disjointed, coverage. For instance, the 1990 text World History: Perspectives on the Past contained four separate chapters with information directly related to 19th- and 20th-century imperialism: “The Age of Imperialism (1875–1914),” “Shifts in World Power (1900–1939),” “Change and Conflict in Asia (1945-Present),” “Nationalism in Africa and the Middle East (1945-Present).”57 Narratively, these chapters were steeped in the language of modernization, calling for non-Western societies to embrace Western development projects.

124  The Wake-Up Call of Empire Another important trend in World History textbooks beginning in the late 1970s was a tendency to evaluate imperialism with a cost-benefit or a ‘pros and cons’ analysis, most often applied to imperialism in India or Africa. Though previous textbooks had extolled or critiqued imperialism, World History textbooks of the late 1970s through the early 2000s designed sections of their texts with direct comparisons of the positive and negative aspects of imperialism, allowing students to make informed judgments regarding the balance sheet of empire. In several cases, World History textbooks simply stated the case for both sides without making any direct conclusions. Examples of this cost-benefit analysis abound from the 1970s to the most recently adopted texts, with some common features. World History textbooks often framed this in developmental terms, praising the infrastructure created by European empires (schools, roads, railroads, etc…), but lamenting the human cost it exacted on non-Western peoples. Gerald Leinwand’s 1977 text The Pageant of World History argued that, on the positive side, imperialism raised world standards of living. But on the negative side, Leinwand mentioned racial discrimination, dispossession of land, and a much longer time without self-government experienced by non-white subjects of empire. He claimed that, “imperialistic nations, for selfish reasons, often forced civilization upon unwilling peoples.”58 Another common critique was that imperialism led to the breakdown of traditional culture. According to a 1990 text by Burton Beers, “the close-knit village, once the center of African life, declined. People no longer had the same concern for helping one another as they had in the past.”59 These interpretations suffered from two major problems. Explicitly for Leinwand, and implicitly for Beers, the authors presumed the superiority of European culture over ‘traditional’ ways of living. Secondly, they glossed over the horrific levels of violence inherent to modern imperialism. Historian Priya Satia argues that a ‘pros and cons’ approach rests on the questionable premise that empire was a legitimate political enterprise, and that it engages in faulty counterfactual thinking. How do we know significant advances would not have occurred were it not for the presence of Europeans? Ultimately, the approach “merely reproduces the legitimizing narratives of liberal empire.”60 A cost-benefit approach asks students to question whether empire was a good thing or not. But this framing makes for a rigged debate, since it presupposes that non-Western people had little agency in the historical process, and assumes that ‘modern’ societies are superior to ‘traditional’ ways of life. The cost-benefit approach taken by many World History textbooks is  also highly inconsistent, and overly limited in scope. Pro and con lists  typically appear within segments regarding imperialism in Africa and  India, and most often in the section on the 19th century. Content on  the  post-1945 world and the era of decolonization might contain

The Wake-Up Call of Empire  125 information on the harmful legacy of colonialism, but the overall narrative of these chapters is framed in developmentalist rhetoric. This significantly undermines the thrust of the pros and cons approach. A textbook might mention that one of the most negative effects of imperialism was the breakdown of traditional culture in one chapter, but criticize traditional culture and praise the adoption of modernization in the next. Clearly, the cost-benefit approach is flawed and relies on ahistorical thinking. But it is also important to note that, unlike earlier textbook narratives, it at least invites the possibility of critiquing the imperial project. By the 1990s, new content on the rise of anti-colonial nationalism became standard, and textbooks began discussing resistance to imperial rule in the non-Western world. The 1999 text World History: The Human Experience by Mounir Farah and Andrea Karls, for instance, mentions resistance by the Ethiopian king Menelik II, the resistance of West African Samory Touré, and concludes the section on imperialism in Africa by noting the rise of a Western-educated African elite opposed to imperialism.61 But this information is often disjointed. When referring to resistance against European rule in Africa, one 2016 text said that “although colonial powers typically responded to such movements with force, they also began to make some reforms.”62 Texts might praise the bravery of those fighting for independence, but often obscure or minimize the European groups that anti-colonial nationalists fought against. Many World History textbooks since the 1990s continue to marginalize the problem of colonial violence. Two of the three physical World History textbooks adopted in 2016, for example, utilized what might be described as a ‘both sides’ approach to the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre in 1919 British India (also known as the Amritsar massacre).63 For example, the book Texas World History described the massacre in the following way: The demonstration, viewed as a nationalist outburst, alarmed the British. They were especially concerned about the alliance of Hindus and Muslims…Most people at the gathering were unaware that the British government had banned public meetings. However, the British commander at Amritsar believed they were openly defying the ban. He ordered his troops to fire on the crowd without warning.64 In this telling, the massacre can be seen as more of a tragic misunderstanding than anything else. The passage certainly does not excuse Reginald Dyer’s order to fire without warning, but it does suggest that the British military had reason to act violently against the crowd. When describing the massacre of unarmed civilians, providing even a hint of a ‘both sides’ approach is deeply problematic, but in line with the historical minimization of colonial violence in Texas textbooks for decades.

126  The Wake-Up Call of Empire The most recently adopted texts continue many of the narrative tropes of previous decades. Consider the 2016 book Texas World History’s treatment of the British Empire. Indirect rule in British Africa and U.S. colonies in the Pacific were, according to the text, designed to “develop future leaders,” to prepare colonies for the time “when the local population would govern itself.”65 This narrative largely accepted the British justification that imperialism would last only until people could govern themselves, a version of the civilizing mission which is not borne out by the available literature on decolonization.66 The chapter also included a ‘pros and cons’ approach to British rule in India.67 Texas students today are exposed to awkwardly ambiguous narratives of 19th- and 20th-century imperialism. Contemporary textbooks include non-Western perspectives, acknowledge at least some of the harmful aspects of imperialism, and enable debate over the legacy of imperialism. These are all significant improvements over earlier eras. But despite these improvements, World History textbooks in Texas still largely accept that European civilization was ‘modern,’ ‘developed,’ or ‘advanced,’ and therefore European imperialism represented progress for the world.

American Imperialism? Undoubtedly the most surprising finding for this research project was that, from the very beginning of the World History course, Texas textbooks have directly labeled the United States an imperial power, and connected American actions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to European colonialism during that era.68 This is surprising because there is a long tradition of empire denialism in Texas and American history. William Appleman Williams pointed this out as early as 1955.69 Amy Kaplan’s pioneering work noted that the idea of American exceptionalism was intimately tied to empire denialism, leading toward the widespread use of euphemisms when referring to American imperial activities: “‘discovery’ not ‘imperium; ‘global power’ not ‘imperialism.’”70 Empire denialism was, for example, a controversial sticking point within the 2010 battle over the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) standards.71 David Barton, a right-wing historian that the Southern Poverty Law Center labels “a key bridge between the mainstream political right and radical-right religious ideology,” served as an ‘expert reviewer’ for the 2010 TEKS review process, and made his rejection of American imperialism clear.72 According to Barton, there was a brief period of time when the United States may have attempted to pursue imperialism, but American imperialism was exceptional, and so vastly different than policies pursued by European powers that it did not deserve the negative connotations that the word empire conjured up. Though he acknowledged that historians generally accepted the term as applied to

The Wake-Up Call of Empire  127 American actions, Barton instead recommended—and the TEKS later reflected—use of the word expansionism.73 Debates over the teaching of American empire in the schools have usually focused on the subject of American History. The lack of attention to the World History course is surprising given that it is one of the most significant pedagogical vehicles designed to teach American high schoolers about the wider world. In some ways, Texas World History textbooks do indeed employ the rhetoric of empire denialism to whitewash the reality of American imperialism. Texts use words like expansionism interchangeably with imperialism, sometimes call America a ‘world power’ rather than an empire, and almost never refer to American continental expansion in the 19th century as imperialism. There are, however, two distinct ways in which Texas World History textbooks deviate from our normal understanding of empire denialism. In the first place, the vast majority of World History textbooks place late 19th-century American activities in the Pacific and Latin America squarely in the same analytical category as European imperialism. Indeed, many textbooks contained chapters on ‘the Age of Empire’ in which the United States featured prominently. Some of these texts make it clear that American imperialism from the 1890s through the First World War operated with the same motivations, and by the same means, as contemporary European empires. Secondly, World History textbooks use the specific word empire to describe American activity from 1898 to the First World War. Far from ignoring, minimizing, or denying that America was an empire, fully 75% of textbooks adopted for the traditional World History course in Texas over the past century have made at least one direct statement that the United States is or has been an empire.74 Given the longstanding idea that Americans are uncomfortable calling themselves imperialists, this is an astounding number. Direct statements associating the United States with imperialism did not, however, imply a rejection of American exceptionalism. A century’s worth of World History textbooks made the case that gaining overseas territory displayed American humanitarian impulses or signified America’s arrival on the world stage as a power to be reckoned with. The United States may have been an empire, but it was not just any empire: It was the most humane, the most just, and the earliest to embrace decolonization, spreading democracy throughout the world. Textbooks in the first two decades of the World History course in Texas frequently identified U.S. activities in the late 19th century with European imperialism, but sometimes differed in their interpretation of these activities. The textbook Our World Today and Yesterday positively identified the United States as an empire, going so far as to use the annexation of Hawaii as a—pardon the pun—textbook example of imperialism.75 Later on, however, the text contained a section on “the Rise of the U.S. as a

128  The Wake-Up Call of Empire World Power,” using a euphemism to describe American activities in Latin America during the Spanish American War of 1898.76 Indeed, the acquisition of new territories was an inevitable result of the “universal search for trade” and the position of the U.S. as “among the first commercial powers of the whole world.”77 U.S. and European imperialism received praise because these powers brought advanced civilization to ‘backward peoples.’ Critically, the text made no mention of domestic opposition to U.S. imperialist activities, nor to the violence associated with American empire. These issues were ignored to better highlight America’s arrival as a world power. Other interwar texts similarly accepted the civilizing power of American imperialism. The 1938 text Story of Civilization described William McKinley’s decision to formally acquire the Philippines with the following passage: The question troubled President McKinley greatly. He tells us that night after night, unable to decide this momentous question, he walked the floor until midnight. And then, suddenly, it was clear to him that the United States must keep the Philippines…. President McKinley decided that the United States must ‘educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them as our fellow-men.’ So in the end the United States took the Philippines- and also Puerto Rico.78 Wrapped in the form of a biographical morality tale about a U.S. President, this passage reveals a series of motivations for the territorial acquisition of the Philippines. Underpinning the strategic reasons was an assumption that the local Filipino population was not yet fit for self-rule, and that they needed United States forces to share both the Christian religion and ‘civilization.’ While Texas World History textbooks of the interwar period often explicitly associated the United States with imperialism, some textbooks simultaneously argued that the U.S. Monroe Doctrine was a powerful anti-imperialist foreign policy.79 According to one 1935 text, “Latin America would doubtless have met the same fate as Asia and Africa, had it not been for the United States.”80 R.O. Hughes asserted that the Monroe Doctrine “saved” the independence of Latin America, though the text also acknowledged that Latin American countries resented the policy because “they feel grown up and no longer like to think of themselves as tied to the apron strings of the United States.”81 The Monroe Doctrine, then, prevented European-style formal imperialism in Latin America while also signaling the extent of American power and authority within the Western Hemisphere. Importantly, in the earliest decades of World History textbooks in Texas, U.S. economic imperialism was only rarely thought of in the same category as formal imperialism.82

The Wake-Up Call of Empire  129 The 1934 text Units in World History by John Greenan and J. Madison Gathany presented a remarkable, and unusually strident, critique of the broad process of imperialism. The authors included the United States in a section labeled “Does Imperialism Pay?” The book noted that there was a strong anti-imperialist movement in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was the only Texas textbook of the adoption period to mention Filipino resistance to U.S. imperialism following the Spanish American War.83 For Greenan and Gathany, territories involuntarily held by the United States were similar to European possessions like Egypt, Korea, or French Indo-China, where “many races held in bondage are seething with hatred and discontent.”84 The authors sounded the alarm that growing anti-colonial nationalist movements, and the industrial competition that motivated imperial acquisitions, would ultimately lead to another calamitous war. They ended the section with a seven-point plan to address the problematic nature of imperialism, including halting dollar diplomacy, prohibition of forced labor, and an end to claims of racial superiority.85 Units in World History explicitly suggested that American actions were “much the same as those of other countries,” making a direct comparison to European imperialism.86 Though the claim that the United States was an empire was similar to other World History textbooks of the era, in other respects the book was an outlier. When surveying the texts of the 1920s and 1930s, a rosy, civilizing interpretation of U.S. imperialism predominated. Though World History textbooks of the 1930s often critiqued imperialism as a world phenomenon, authors usually asserted that the United States was an altruistic colonizer, and that empire signified American greatness. Following the Second World War, the Eurocentric diffusionist paradigm became even more entrenched in Texas World History textbooks.87 A strong example of this comes from Our World Today and Yesterday by R.O. Hughes, adopted by Texas in the 1930s and 1940s and officially endorsed in a 1949 curriculum guide produced by the Texas State Department of Education.88 According to Hughes, the United States had been involved in “the colonizing business,” and that, along with Great Britain, “honestly desired that wherever their flag went the blessings of civilization would follow.”89 Our World Today and Yesterday explained imperialism within the context of the White Man’s Burden, directly and uncritically quoting the 1899 Rudyard Kipling poem, and portrayed U.S. imperialism as similarly burdensome. The Monroe Doctrine, Hughes insisted, had ‘saved’ Latin America from European domination, but had been “as much of a burden as a benefit to the United States.”90 The United States, according to this interpretation, nobly took up the call to empire and helped civilize the ‘backward’ peoples of the world. T. Walter Wallbank’s textbook Man’s Story: World History in its Geographic Setting provided one of the most detailed assessments of

130  The Wake-Up Call of Empire American imperialism of the 1950s. The text emphasized economic motivations for American imperialism related to post-Civil War industrial growth in the United States.91 The “biggest venture of the United States along the imperialistic path” was the takeover of the Philippines following the Spanish American War.92 Wallbank acknowledged that “American rule in the Philippines got off to a bad start,” as local Filipino groups actively fought against the United States in a bloody three-year-long conflict.93 But the author quickly pointed out that the U.S. takeover of the Philippines was “a brighter spot in colonial history” because the enlightened U.S. officials brought education, improved sanitation, and medical services. Not only this, but U.S. forces paved the way for eventual selfgovernment in the Philippines. Not all Filipinos appreciated U.S. rule, but “in the main, however, the people were content with the good work being done by American administrators and with the United States’ promise of eventual independence.”94 Wallbank’s description coupled a minimalist critique of American imperialism with effusive praise of the humanitarian work done by American occupiers. By the 1960s and 1970s, textbooks began to include additional content on non-Western peoples, and explanations of American imperialism took on a more ambiguous tone. The 1975 version of the textbook Men and Nations: A World History, for instance, contained an entire chapter on imperialism in the Pacific and Latin America, centered mainly on the actions of the United States. The authors did not mention resistance by Filipino forces following the U.S. takeover in 1898, though they did argue that many U.S. citizens were “uneasy over the role of the United States as an imperialist power.”95 The awkward ambivalence of this material was on full display in the following passage: The small, sparsely inhabited islands of the Pacific that came under United States control were directly governed by the United States government. Local inhabitants had no direct voice in their own government, but the United States built schools and roads, and in other ways tried to improve their standards of living.96 This passage acknowledged the dispossession of Indigenous peoples while simultaneously emphasizing the civilizing mission of the United States. The text strongly implied that material development made under the leadership of the United States outweighed the negative consequences of imperial rule. By the 1980s, explanations of U.S. imperialism followed the trend of using a cost-benefit approach to explain American empire. World History textbooks nearly always identified U.S. actions in the late 19th century as imperialism, implying that these actions made the United States a great power or brought benefits to the non-Western World. Texts continued to claim that the Monroe Doctrine, in the words of Burton  Beers,

The Wake-Up Call of Empire  131 “freed the nations of Latin America from the threat of reconquest,” but also noted the increasing resentment of Latin Americans to American interventionism in the early 20th century.97 Beers similarly explained the costs and benefits of the Panama Canal by saying: “despite the advantages of the canal, many Latin American nations remained bitter about what they saw as United States imperialism in the region.”98 The author here acknowledged criticisms coming from Latin American nations, but also noted that the Panama Canal provided obvious advantages to everyone. While some World History texts included limited criticisms of U.S. colonizing efforts, other Texas World History texts of the 1980s and 1990s effusively praised U.S. imperialism. The textbook History of the World argued that U.S. imperialist activity in Latin America “revealed its [the U.S.A.’s] growth as a nation. In a little more than a century it had grown from an infant republic to a major power in international affairs.”99 The 1994 text Fearon’s World History echoed this sentiment in a chapter entitled “The United States Becomes an Imperialist Power,” by saying that “the United States took its place as a major force in the history of the modern world.”100 The violent takeover of territory, economic coercion, and autocratic rule imposed by U.S. forces were not historical episodes to be ashamed of, but rather triumphant signs of U.S. greatness to be celebrated. From the 1980s to the present, there are only two instances of a World History textbook approved in Texas not directly stating that the United States practiced imperialism in the 19th century. One of these was the curious case of a textbook authored by Gerald Leinwand in 1990. Leinwand, a professor of education at New York University, first began publishing the textbook The Pageant of World History in the 1960s, though the book was not adopted in Texas until 1977. That year’s edition contained a section entitled “What is the nature of the American Empire?” where Leinwand described U.S. expansion in Alaska, Hawaii, and the Philippines as examples of American imperial expansion. America may have been an empire, but, according to Leinwand, it was still better than European practices of the time.101 Like other books of that era, the discussion of imperialism painted an ambivalent picture. Mysteriously, the 1990 edition of A Pageant of World History did not contain the section on American imperialism. The revised version spent an entire unit discussing imperialism, but omitted all references to the United States as an empire.102 This was not a mandate from the new Texas state standards, nor was it in line with other books of the time period. The simplest explanation for the omission is that the section on American imperialism was deleted for reasons of space, as the revised edition included new chapters on recent events. It is also possible that the publisher cut that passage because it was controversial.

132  The Wake-Up Call of Empire By the late 1990s, World History textbooks began to more systematically note resistance to U.S. imperialism. In the 1999 adoption period, every text positively identified U.S. activities in the Pacific and Latin America during the late 19th century as imperialism, and all but one acknowledged that U.S. actions caused widespread resentment and led to  the rise of anti-colonial nationalism.103 World History: Patterns of Interaction provided an interesting characterization of U.S. actions in the Spanish-American War. The book described the internal domestic debate over U.S. imperialism, pitting “most Americans” who “disliked the idea of colonizing other nations” against “ambitious empire-builders” and business interests who were highly motivated to acquire new territory.104 The book highlighted the benefits of U.S. occupation including roads, railroads, education, and hospitals, but also noted the economic exploitation of the Philippines during the era of U.S. dominance.105 Though textbooks contained more nuanced perspectives regarding U.S. imperialism in the late 1990s and early 2000s, differences in tone and emphasis remained. The book World History: Continuity & Change by William Travis Hanes III noted similarities between European and American imperial rule but asserted that the U.S. was a more humane colonizer. In the teachers’ edition of that textbook, educators were encouraged to emphasize that the “U.S. was less interested in gaining colonies than European countries were,” and that “U.S. development resulted in new schools, roads, and hospitals, and eventual Filipino selfgovernment and independence.”106 This is yet another iteration of a longstanding trend in Texas World History textbooks emphasizing American exceptionalism through imperialism, a sign of American greatness and superiority to other European empires. Despite the controversial 2010 battle over the word imperialism in the TEKS, all of the texts adopted in 2016 made direct assertions that the United States was an empire.107 The most in-depth treatment came from the book World History by Elizabeth Gaynor Ellis and Anthony Esler. The narrative mentioned both anti-imperialist sentiment in the United States and Filipino resistance to U.S. rule. The narrative flow, however, is telling. The book says matter-of-factly that the United States crushed the Filipino rebellion, but the very next sentence says that “the United States set out to modernize the Philippines through education, improved health care, and economic reforms.”108 So though it acknowledged Filipino bitterness over U.S. annexation, the text justified U.S. actions by emphasizing American humanitarian and modernizing efforts. The interpretations of Hanes III in 1999 and Gaynor and Ellis in 2016 are simply new manifestations of a common theme in World History textbooks over the past century. American actions in the Pacific and Latin America in the late 19th century were, according to the majority of Texas World History texts since the 1920s, directly comparable to European actions during the same time period. Importantly, the links between

The Wake-Up Call of Empire  133 American and European actions were safely confined to the late 19th century, and the term empire was almost never attached to either American continental expansion of the early to mid-19th century, nor to American informal imperialism from the post-WWII era to the present. Compared to their European counterparts, textbook authors have been quick to point out that the United States was the best kind of empire. The United States brought order, economic development, and paved the way for eventual self-government. Supplying justifications for American imperialism ensures, therefore, that World History textbook narratives do not undermine the concept of American exceptionalism. Though newer textbooks mention anti-colonial nationalist resistance to American rule, they nevertheless continue the longstanding trend of justifying American imperial acquisitions as either a humanitarian necessity or a sign of national greatness. In doing so, they fail to reckon with the fundamental contradiction between the ideal of the United States as a beacon of global democracy, a central narrative plank of the World History course, and the historical legacy of 19th-century autocratic rule overseen by the United States. Ironically, World History textbooks in Texas support American exceptionalism largely by adopting and adapting the civilizing rhetoric used and propagated by European imperialists in the 19th century.

Conclusion: Imperialism as a Modernizing Force in World History Perhaps the best way to think of imperialism is not to try to label it as wholly evil, completely good, or a mixture of both, but to see it as a great world movement…. The real importance of imperialism is that it has been one of the forces making for the Europeanization of the world.…While this process at times was painful to the backward peoples concerned, in general they were awakened from their drowsy life. Ideally, of course, it would have been much better if this Europeanization of the world had come about with more consideration of the native peoples. But few of the great movements of world history unfold according to an ideal blueprint.109 This quotation comes from a 1951 World History textbook by T. Walter Wallbank and James Quillen, and summarizes a century-long tradition of explaining empire in Texas World History textbooks. Morally, imperialism was neither good nor bad. It was, however, a wake-up call to the non-Western world, the mechanism by which the allegedly superior European civilization spread to the non-Western world. In this sense, then, European imperialism may have been deeply harmful in certain  places and at some times, but it was a necessary evil that raised the global level of civilization, fundamentally advancing ‘progress’ and ‘modernity.’

134  The Wake-Up Call of Empire Textbook depictions of imperialism evolved slowly over time, and can be seen in at least three distinct periods. First, World History textbooks of the 1920s and 1930s mostly accepted that imperialism brought benefits to non-Western peoples, but were nevertheless concerned with the potential of imperialism to sow discord and create conflict (especially between European imperial powers). Second, from the 1940s through the 1970s, World History textbooks altered the standard narrative of empire in light of the rapidly unfolding decolonization of Asia and Africa. During this era, World History textbook authors adopted developmentalist rhetoric and claimed that imperialism was a triumph for westernization. Finally, since the late 1970s, World History textbook coverage of empire expanded dramatically, and began including perspectives from colonized peoples. Many of these texts evaluate imperialism with a costbenefit analysis or a list of pros and cons, at least as applied to the 19th century. To be sure, textbook narratives of imperialism have come a long way since the origins of the course in the interwar period. With a few exceptions, World History textbook authors did not fully accept the civilizing claims of imperialists, nor did they reject them outright.110 Tone, context, and even word choice all made a difference. The most recent texts dedicate serious attention to the plight of colonized peoples, and sometimes offer harsh critiques of European imperialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. They may also discuss the harmful legacy of imperialism that continues to this day. However, World History textbooks still imply that imperialism brought the non-Western world into contact with Europe, which brought civilization, modernization, and progress to the nonWestern world.

Notes 1 Stephen Howe, Empire: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 16–18. 2 Mads Bomholt Nielsen, ‘New Imperialism,’ in The British Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia, ed. Mark Doyle. Volume I (Santa Barbara: ABCCLIO, 2018), 53–56. 3 See Robert Burroughs and Sarah de Mul, “As Leopold II Statues Fall, How Do We ‘Educate Ourselves’ About His Colony?” Imperial & Global Forum, 7/20/2020, https://imperialglobalexeter.com/2020/07/20/as-leopold-ii-statuesfall-how-do-we-educate-ourselves-about-his-colony/; Daniel Cullen, “Leopold Must Fall,” Imperial & Global Forum, 6/28/2016, https://imperialglobalexeter. com/2016/06/28/leopold-must-fall/; The Decolonising Working Group, Department of History, University of Exeter, “Who wants yesterday’s statues?” Imperial & Global Forum, 6/15/2020, https://imperialglobalexeter. com/2020/06/15/who-wants-yesterdays-statues/ 4 Roseann Chantiluke, Rhodes Must Fall: The Struggle to Decolonise the Racist Heart of Empire (London: Zed Books, 2018). 5 Some representative examples include: Mario Carretero, Mikel Asensio, and Maria Rodriguez-Moneo, History Education and the Construction of

The Wake-Up Call of Empire  135 National Identities (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing Inc., 2012); Karel Van Nieuwenhuyse, “Empire and Imperialism in Education Since 1945: Secondary School History Textbooks,” in The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism, eds. Immanuel Ness and Zak Cope (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2019), 1–15; Karel Van Nieuwenhuyse and Joaquim Valentim, The Colonial Past in History Textbooks: Historical and Social Psychological Perspectives (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc., 2018). 6 Karel van Nieuwenhuyse, “Empire and Imperialism in Education Since 1945,” 7; Denise Bentrovato and Karel Van Nieuwenhuyse, “Confronting ‘dark’ Colonial Pasts: A Historical Analysis of Practices of Representation in Belgian and Congolese Schools, 1945–2015”, Paedagogica Historica 56, no. 3 (2020): 293–320. 7 Nigel Biggar, “Don’t Feel Guilty about our Colonial History,” The Times (UK), 11/30/2017. Bruce Gilley, “The Case for Colonialism,” Academic Questions 31, no. 2 (June 2018), 167–185. For a response by Oxford faculty, see James McDougall et al., “Ethics and Empire: An Open Letter from Oxford Scholars,” The Conversation, 12/19/2017, https://theconversation.com/ ethics-and-empire-an-open-letter-from-oxford-scholars-89333 8 See Anna Clark, History’s Children: History Wars in the Classroom (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2008). 9 Joe Friesen, “Ryerson Statue Toppled as Calls Amplify for Name Change at Toronto University,” The Globe and Mail, 6/7/2021, https://www.theglobe andmail.com/canada/article-ryerson-statue-toppled-as-calls-amplify-for-namechange-at-toronto/ 10 For more on the Gablers, see Gene B. Preuss, “‘As Texas Goes, So Goes the Nation’: Conservatism and Culture Wars in the Lone Star State,” in Politics and the History Curriculum: The Struggle Over Standards in Texas and the Nation, ed. Keith Erekson (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 20–38. For more on the rightward shift of Texas education, see Rachel Hutchins, Nationalism and History Education: Curricula and Textbooks in the United States and France (New York: Routledge, 2016), 36. 11 Education Research Analysts, “More Sample Standard Review Criteria,” Accessed November 14, 2020, http://www.textbookreviews.org/ 12 J.M. Blaut, The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History (New York: The Guilford Press, 1993), 1. 13 See Dane Kennedy, “Review of The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geo­ graphical Diffusionism & Eurocentric History,” American Historical Review 101, no. 1 (February 1996), 148–149. 14 Blaut, The Colonizer’s Model of the World, 16. 15 James Harvey Robinson, Emma Peters Smith, and James Henry Breasted, Our World Today and Yesterday: A History of Modern Civilization (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1924), 467. 16 John T. Greenan and J. Madison Gathany, Units in World History: Development of Modern Europe (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1934), 497. 17 For more on how passive voice constructions serve to obscure matters of responsibility in World History, see, Tadashi Dozono, “The Passive Voice of White Supremacy: Tracing Epistemic and Discursive Violence in World History Curriculum,” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 42, no. 1 (2020): 1–26. 18 For examples, see R.O. Hughes, The Making of Today’s World (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1935), 633; Edwin Pahlow, Man’s Great Adventure: An Introduction to World History (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1932), 737.

136  The Wake-Up Call of Empire 19 See Texas World History, Teacher’s Edition (Orlando, FL: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2016), 776. 20 Hutton Webster, World History (Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., Publishers, 1921), 540. 21 In order: Robinson, Smith, and Breasted, Our World Today and Yesterday, 463; R.O. Hughes, The Making of Today’s World (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1947), 631; T. Walter Wallbank and Arnold Schrier, Living World History (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1969), 531. 22 Webster, World History, 541–542. 23 Ibid, 492. 24 Ibid, ibidem. 25 These include Carl Becker and Frederic Duncalf, Story of Civilization; Albert Heckel and James Sigman, On the Road to Civilization; Carlton Hayes, Parker Thomas Moon, and John Wayland, World History. See Appendix A for the full list. 26 Carl Becker and Frederic Duncalf, Story of Civilization (New York: Silver Burdett Company, 1938), 669. 27 Heckel and Sigman, On the Road to Civilization, 648. 28 Ibid, 676. 29 Pahlow, Man’s Great Adventure 1932 edition, 751. 30 Ibid, 751. 31 Ibid, 742. 32 Ibid, 596. 33 The next section will focus on the textbook treatment of American imperialism. 34 Hughes, The Making of Today’s World 1935 edition, 672. 35 Hayes, Moon, and Wayland, World History, 740 and 743. 36 Pahlow, Man’s Great Adventure 1932 edition, 741. 37 Becker and Duncalf, Story of Civilization, 678. 38 For more on World History textbooks and narratives of decolonization, see Stephen Jackson, “‘The Triumph of the West’: American Education and the Narrative of Decolonization, 1930–1965,” History of Education Quarterly 58, no. 4 (2018): 567–594. 39 Arthur Boak, Preston Slosson, and Howard Anderson, World History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947), 433. 40 Boak, Slosson, and Howard, World History, 568. 41 R.O. Hughes, The Making of Today’s World (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1952), 744. 42 This point is more fully developed in Jackson, “‘The Triumph of the West’”. See also Hilary Kalisman’s critique of Benedict Anderson’s model of nationalism in Schooling the State: Educators in Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan c. 1890–1960. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California-Berkeley, 2015, 5–6. 43 More research needs to be done on this topic, but there are intriguing hints that the narrative of an inevitable process toward decolonization was international in scope, affecting numerous former colonial powers. See Todd Shepard, The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006); “Making French and European Coincide: Decolonization and the Politics of Comparative and Transnational Histories,” Ab Imperio 2 (2007): 339–360. 44 William Habberton and Lawrence Roth, Man’s Achievement Through the Ages (Chicago: Laidlaw Brothers, 1952), 515. 45 Habberton and Roth, Man’s Achievement Through the Ages, 535.

The Wake-Up Call of Empire  137 46 Gerald Leinwand, The Pageant of World History (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1977), 210. 47 John Good and Richard Ford, The Shaping of Western Society: Tradition and Change in Four Societies: An Inquiry Approach (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1971). The last book intentionally designed for European history alone was the 1934 text Units in World History: Development of Modern Europe by John Greenan and J. Madison Gathany, though the book did couch numerous problems within a global framework. 48 Good and Ford, The Shaping of Western Society, 376. 49 Leften Stavrianos et al., A Global History of Man (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1970), v. 50 Stavrianos et al., A Global History of Man, 211. 51 For a helpful understanding of modernization discourse and policy formation in the United States, see David Ekbladh, The Great American Mission: Modernization & the Construction of an American World Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). 52 Habberton and Roth, Man’s Achievement Through the Ages, 755. 53 See Appendix C for details on the amount of content provided for the nonWestern world. 54 Arthur Boak et al., The History of Our World (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961), 572. 55 Boak et al., The History of Our World, 573. 56 For more on the emergence of the Essential Elements, see Chapter 3. 57 Steven Jantzen, Larry Krieger, and Kenneth Neill, World History: Perspectives on the Past, Texas Teacher’s Annotated Edition (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1990), xii–xiii. 58 Leinwand, The Pageant of World History 1977 edition, 491. 59 Burton Beers, World History: Patterns of Civilization, Annotated Teacher’s Edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990), 576. 60 Priya Satia, Time’s Monster: How History Makes History (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2020), 277. See also Alan Lester’s Deny & Disavow: Distancing the Imperial Past in the Culture Wars (London: SunRise Publishing, 2022) especially Chapter 9. 61 Mounir Farah and Andrea Karls, World History: The Human Experience, Texas Edition (New York: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 1999), 710–712. 62 Jackson Spielvogel, World History, Teacher’s Edition (Bothell, WA: McGrawHill Education, 2016), 691. 63 These include Texas World History; and Elizabeth Ellis and Anthony Esler, World History, Texas Teacher’s Edition (Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2016). 64 Texas World History, 888. 65 Texas World History, 780–781. 66 A recent and authoritative articulation of this point can be found in: Martin Thomas and Andrew S. Thompson, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 67 Texas World History, 792. 68 For an engaging overview of American imperial activity, see Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019). 69 William Appleman Williams, “The Frontier Thesis and American Foreign Policy,” Pacific Historical Review 24, no. 4 (1955): 379. 70 Amy Kaplan, “‘Left Alone with America’: The Absence of Empire in the Study of American Culture,” in Cultures of United States Imperialism, eds.

138  The Wake-Up Call of Empire Amy Kaplan and Donald Pease (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), 13. See also Julian Go, Patterns of Empire: The British and American Empires, 1688 to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 71 For more on the history of culture wars in America, especially in the schools, see: Andrew Hartman, A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015); Gary Nash, Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross Dunn, History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past (New York: Vintage Books, 1997); Linda Symcox, Whose History? The Struggle for National Standards in American Classrooms (New  York: Teachers College Press, 2002); Jonathan Zimmerman, Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002). 72 “David Barton,” Southern Poverty Law Center website. Accessed August 6, 2020. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/davidbarton 73 David Barton, Social Studies TEKS, Second Review, Texas Education Agency, September 2009, 64–65. Accessed August 6, 2020. https://tea.texas.gov/ academics/curriculum-standards/teks-review/social-studies-teks 74 This includes 50 out of 66 textbooks approved for World History in the state of Texas from 1921–2016. My analysis does not include electronic textbooks or books adopted specifically for the Advanced Placement World History course. For the full list, see Appendix A. 75 Ibid, 467. 76 Ibid, 483. 77 Ibid, 480. 78 Becker and Duncalf, Story of Civilization, 687. 79 For a voluminous overview of American foreign policy, see Christopher Dietrich, ed., A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations Colonial Era to the Present Volumes I and II (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2020). 80 Hayes, Moon, and Wayland, World History, 759. 81 Hughes, The Making of Today’s World, 1935, 663. 82 Historians of imperialism make a distinction between formal and informal forms of empire. Formal empires involve direct military and political takeover, whereas informal means of control often involve economic coercion or the threat of force to dominate a subject territory without directly taking it over. This distinction was first developed by John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson, “The Imperialism of Free Trade,” The Economic History Review, New Series 6, no. 1 (1953): 1–15. 83 Greenan and Gathany, Units in World History, 518. 84 Ibid, 525. 85 Ibid, 529. 86 Ibid, 521. 87 Blaut, The Colonizer’s Model of the World. See also Patrick Manning’s concept of the ‘expansion-of-Europe’ model. Patrick Manning, Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). 88 Hughes, The Making of Today’s World. 89 Ibid, 635. 90 Ibid, 663. 91 T. Walter Wallbank and James Quillen, Man’s Story: World History in Its Geographic Setting (Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1951), 526. 92 Ibid, 527. 93 Ibid, 527.

The Wake-Up Call of Empire  139 94 Wallbank and Quillen, Man’s Story, 527. 95 Anatole Mazour and John Peoples, Men and Nations: A World History, Third Edition (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), 572. 96 Ibid, 578. 97 Burton Beers, World History: Patterns of Civilization, Teacher’s Edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983), 537. 98 Ibid, 540. 99  Marvin Perry et al., History of the World (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990), 561. 100 Joanne Suter, Fearon’s World History, Second edition (Paramus, NJ: Globe Fearon Educational Publisher, 1994), 315. 101 Leinwand, The Pageant of World History 1977 Edition, 490. 102 Gerald Leinwand, The Pageant of World History (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1990). Unit 7 “The Dominance of Europe,” starts on page 503. 103 The exception is Jackson Spielvogel, World History: The Human Odyssey, Texas Teacher’s Edition (Cincinnati, OH: West Educational Publishing, 1999). 104 Roger Beck et al., World History: Patterns of Interaction (Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, 1999), 708. 105 Ibid, 709. 106 Hanes III, World History: Continuity & Change, 680. 107 Please note that my analysis includes the physical texts, not electronic only texts. 108 Gaynor and Esler, World History, 2016, 680. 109 Wallbank and Quillen, Man’s Story, 531. 110 Please note that my textbook sample looks at the traditional World History course offered in Texas, and would not apply to textbooks meant for us in the Advanced Placement World History (APWH) course. Texas only approved books specifically meant for the APWH course in one adoption period. See Appendix A for details.

Bibliography Barton, David. Social Studies TEKS Second Review. Texas Education Agency, 2009. https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/Barton%20draft%201.pdf Beck, Roger C., Linda Black, Larry S. Krieger, and Dahia Ibo Shabaka. World History: Patterns of Interaction. Texas Edition. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, 2003. Becker, Carl, and Frederic Duncalf. Story of Civilization. New York: Silver Burdett Company, 1938. Beers, Burton. World History: Patterns of Civilization. Teacher’s Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1983. ———. World History: Patterns of Civilization. Annotated Teacher’s Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990. Bentrovato, Denise, and Karel Van Nieuwenhuyse. “Confronting ‘dark’ Colonial Pasts: A Historical Analysis of Practices of Representation in Belgian and Congolese Schools, 1945–2015.” Paedagogica Historica 56, no. 3 (2020): 293– 320. https://doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2019.1572203 Biggar, Nigel. “Don’t Feel Guilty about Our Colonial History.” The Times, November 30, 2017.

140  The Wake-Up Call of Empire Blaut, J.M. The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History. New York: The Guilford Press, 1993. Boak, Arthur, Preston Slosson, and Howard Anderson. World History, edited by William Langer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947. Boak, Arthur, Preston Slosson, Howard Anderson, and Hall Bartlett. The History of Our World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961. Burroughs, Robert, and Sarah de Mul. “As Leopold II Statues Fall, How Do We ‘Educate Ourselves’ About His Colony?” Imperial & Global Forum (blog), July 20, 2020. https://imperialglobalexeter.com/2020/07/20/as-leopold-ii-statuesfall-how-do-we-educate-ourselves-about-his-colony/ Carretero, Mario, Mikel Asensio, and María Rodríguez-Moneo, eds. History Education and the Construction of National Identities. International Review of History Education. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc., 2012. Chantiluke, Roseann, Brian Kwoba, and Athinangamso Nkopo, eds. Rhodes Must Fall: The Struggle to Decolonise the Racist Heart of Empire. London: Zed Books, 2018. Clark, Anna. History’s Children: History Wars in the Classroom. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2008. Cullen, Daniel. “Leopold Must Fall.” Imperial & Global Forum (blog), June 28, 2016. https://imperialglobalexeter.com/2016/06/28/leopold-must-fall/ Dietrich, Christopher R.W. ed. A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations Colonial Era to the Present. Vol. I–II. Wiley-Blackwell Companions to American History. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2020. Doyle, Mark, ed. The British Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia. Vol. I. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2018. Dozono, Tadashi. “The Passive Voice of White Supremacy: Tracing Epistemic and Discursive Violence in World History Curriculum.” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 42, no. 1 (2020): 1–26. Educational Research Analysts. More Sample Standard Review Criteria. n.d. Accessed June 29, 2020. www.textbookreviews.org Ekbladh, David. The Great American Mission: Modernization & the Construction of an American World Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010. Ellis, Elizabeth Gaynor, and Anthony Esler. World History. Texas Teacher’s Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc., 2016. Erekson, Keith, ed. Politics and the History Curriculum: The Struggle Over Standards in Texas and the Nation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Farah, Mounir A., and Andrea Berens Karls. World History: The Human Experience. Texas Edition. New York: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 1999. Friesen, Joe. “Ryerson Statue Toppled as Calls Amplify for Name Change at Toronto University.” The Globe and Mail. June 7, 2021. https://www.theglobe andmail.com/canada/article-ryerson-statue-toppled-as-calls-amplify-for-namechange-at-toronto/ Gallagher, John and Ronald Robinson. “The Imperialism of Free Trade.” The Economic History Review, New Series 6, no. 1 (1953): 1–15. Gilley, Bruce. “The Case for Colonialism.” Academic Questions 31, no. 2 (2018): 167–85. Go, Julian. Patterns of Empire: The British and American Empires, 1688 to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

The Wake-Up Call of Empire  141 Good, John M., and Richard B. Ford. The Shaping of Western Society: Tradition and Change in Four Societies: An Inquiry Approach. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1971. Greenan, John T., and J. Madison Gathany. Units in World History: Development of Modern Europe. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1934. Habberton, William, and Lawrence Roth. Man’s Achievement Through the Ages. Chicago: Laidlaw Brothers, 1952. Hartman, Andrew. A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015. Heckel, Albert Kerr, and James G. Sigman. On the Road to Civilization. Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1937. Howe, Stephen. Empire: A Very Short Introduction. Very Short Introductions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Hughes, R.O. The Making of Today’s World. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1935. ———. The Making of Today’s World. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1947. ———. The Making of Today’s World. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1952. Immerwahr, Daniel. How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019. Jackson, Stephen. “‘The Triumph of the West’: American Education and the Narrative of Decolonization, 1930–1965.” History of Education Quarterly 58, no. 4 (2018): 567–94. Jantzen, Steven L., Larry S. Krieger, and Kenneth Neill. World History: Perspectives on the Past. Texas Teacher’s Annotated Edition. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1990. Kalisman, Hilary Falb. “Schooling the State: Educators in Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan: C. 1890-c. 1960.” Ph.D., University of California-Berkeley, 2015. Kaplan, Amy, and Donald E. Pease, eds. Cultures of United States Imperialism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993. Kennedy, Dane. “Review of The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism & Eurocentric History.” American Historical Review 101, no. 1 (1996): 148–49. Leinwand, Gerald. The Pageant of World History. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1977. ———. The Pageant of World History. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1990. Lester, Alan. Deny & Disavow: Distancing the Imperial Past in the Culture Wars. London: SunRise Publishing Ltd., 2022. Manning, Patrick. Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Mazour, Anatole G., and John M. Peoples. Men and Nations: A World History. Third Edition. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. McDougall, James, Erin O’Halloran, Hussein Ahmed Hussein Omar, and Peter Hill. “Ethics and Empire: An Open Letter from Oxford Scholars.” The Conversation (blog), December 19, 2017. https://theconversation.com/ethicsand-empire-an-open-letter-from-oxford-scholars-89333 Nash, Gary, Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross Dunn. History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past. New York: Vintage Books, 1997.

142  The Wake-Up Call of Empire Pahlow, Edwin. Man’s Great Adventure: An Introduction to World History. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1932. Perry, Marvin, Allan Scholl, Daniel F. Davis, Jeannette G. Harris, and Theodore H. Von Laue. History of the World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990. Robinson, James Harvey, Emma Peters Smith, and James Henry Breasted. Our World Today and Yesterday: A History of Modern Civilization. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1924. Satia, Priya. Time’s Monster: How History Makes History. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2020. Schapiro, J. Salwyn, and Richard B. Morris. Civilization in Europe: Part I. Ancient and Medieval Times. Part II. Modern Times in Europe. Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press, 1931. Segal, Daniel. “‘Western Civ’ and the Staging of History in American Higher Education.” The American Historical Review 105, no. 3 (2000): 770–805. Shepard, Todd. The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. ———. “Making French and European Coincide: Decolonization and the Politics of Comparative And Transnational Histories.” Ab Imperio 2, no. 2007 (2007): 339–60. Spielvogel, Jackson J. World History: The Human Odyssey. Texas Teacher’s Edition. Cincinnati, OH: West Educational Publishing, 1999. Spielvogel, Jackson, and Jay McTighe. World History. Teacher Edition. Bothell, WA: McGraw-Hill Education, 2016. Stavrianos, Leften et al. A Global History of Man. 1970 Edition (first out in 1962). Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1970. Suter, Joanne. Fearon’s World History. Second Edition. Paramus, NJ: Globe Fearon Educational Publisher, 1994. Texas World History. Teacher’s Edition. Orlando, FL: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2016. The Decolonising Working Group, Department of History, University of Exeter (and friends). “Who Wants Yesterday’s Statues?” Imperial & Global Forum (blog), June 15, 2020. https://imperialglobalexeter.com/2020/06/15/who-wantsyesterdays-statues/ Thomas, Martin, and Andrew S. Thompson, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Van Nieuwenhuyse, Karel. “Empire and Imperialism in Education Since 1945: Secondary School History Textbooks.” In The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism, 1–15. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2019. Van Nieuwenhuyse, Karel, and Joaquim Piers Valentim, eds. The Colonial Past in History Textbooks: Historical and Social Psychological Perspectives. Vol. 9. International Review of History Education. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc., 2018. Wallbank, T. Walter, and Arnold Schrier. Living World History. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1969.

The Wake-Up Call of Empire  143 T. Walter Wallbank. Man’s Story: World History in Its Geographic Setting. Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1951. Webster, Hutton. World History. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., Publishers, 1921. Williams, William Appleman. “The Frontier Thesis and American Foreign Policy.” Pacific Historical Review 24, no. 4 (1955): 379–95. Zimmerman, Jonathan. Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.

6 Modern Problems

From the very earliest days of the World History course in Texas, educators believed that history was useful insofar as it shed light on contemporary issues. In the 1930s and 1940s, world events strongly reinforced the need to teach a global story, and to make that story relevant to contemporary Texas students. By 1949, this resulted in a course proposal called ‘Modern Problems,’ which would “guide student thinking on the level of world problems and our own responsibility in solving them.”1 The Modern Problems course never emerged as a standalone course in the crowded secondary curricula in Texas, but educators expected that World History would embrace many of its objectives. The 1949 curriculum for World History echoed the sentiments of the Modern Problems course by encouraging “our young people to think of themselves as citizens of the world as well as of our country, and to awaken them to the possibility of their making valuable contributions to the progress of humanity.”2 This chapter examines Texas World History textbook depictions of contemporary events over the past century. The progressive emphasis on the utility of history to prepare students for contemporary living had a double effect on the teaching of World History in the state. First, it meant that history courses selectively included content in their historical narratives deemed relevant to modern life. Historical information considered irrelevant to present concerns could be omitted. For World History, this meant stressing the development of democracy and civilization. Second, it meant that the course placed far more emphasis on the recent past than did the traditional history curriculum advocated by the American Historical Association in the first two decades of the 20th century. Almost every textbook adopted in the state of Texas over the past century contains at least one separate and identifiable chapter dedicated to current events. My analysis included content on events within ten years of the publication date, or that was explicitly placed in chapters meant to depict the contemporary world. In a textbook published in 1977, for instance, I analyzed material related to historical events from DOI: 10.4324/9781003323785-6

Modern Problems  145 1967 to 1977, but also general content describing the global Cold War since it was placed in a chapter on contemporary times.3 These chapters provided original perspectives and content information on a range of subjects thought to be of vital significance to students. Much of this content was so specific to the moment that it only appeared in one adoption period, but there are identifiable long-running themes evident in World History textbooks of the past century. These include the perils and possibilities of global interdependence, the discouraging failure of international peace-keeping initiatives like the League of Nations and the United Nations, as well as the dangers and triumphs of modern scientific discovery. Within this chapter, I have chosen to focus on long-running anxieties concerning democracy and capitalism in the modern world. From the earliest moments of the course, Texas educators and policymakers have held that World History should provide historical context in support of democracy.4 The course first emerged in the inter-war period where progressive educators argued that knowledge of the world was necessary for fully formed citizens in a democratic society. The first textbooks were also written in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution, and the specter of communism haunted textbook narratives throughout the Cold War and beyond.5 Supporting capitalism, or free enterprise as it is often called in Texas, has been and remains a central preoccupation of World History curricula and textbooks. Though I am focusing on textbook depictions of contemporary events, the rise of democracy and capitalism provided overarching themes for these textbooks, leading to narratives that privileged origins points of democracy—especially in Europe—at the expense of the history of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.6 Discussions of both democracy and capitalism loom large in the recent events sections of World History textbooks, with authors oscillating between supreme confidence in the strength of these systems, and anxiety that they were and are perpetually endangered. Textbook anxieties swiftly evolved with the times. In the first two decades of the course, anxieties were often introspective: could U.S. capitalist democracy survive the Great Depression? Following the Second World War, textbook anxieties focused on external threats to stability. In either case, I argue that these anxieties enabled World History textbooks to promote a global role for the United States. Within the pages of World History textbooks, authors stressed that the U.S. needed to resist communist aggression, show non-communist nations how to organize their societies, and help newly independent countries develop into successful democracies. The rest of the chapter examines the shifting contours of World History narratives of contemporary content. But before grappling with the specifics, it is important to understand how the organizational choices made by

146  Modern Problems authors affected coverage of the contemporary world. Authorial choices, publishing practices, and the precise timing of Texas adoption periods affected swiftly evolving content on recent events. Perhaps the most significant impact on contemporary content was the author’s choice of organization. Textbooks in the 1920s and 1930s contained one or two chapters on events since the First World War. In some cases, this took on a ‘problem’ oriented approach, in which textbook content was organized around specific world issues rather than a strictly chronological method.7 From the late 1940s through the early 1970s, there was a great deal of variability in how textbook authors organized content on the contemporary world. Textbooks like The History of Our World from 1961 contained an entire unit entitled “The World Faces New Challenges,” with a chapter examining the Cold War, and another on movements for independence in the non-Western world.8 Several texts such as Our Widening World by Ethel Ewing were organized along regional lines, with each unit exploring a separate geographical part of the globe. But even in this case, there was a concluding unit entitled “the world in which we live,” that discussed contemporary events.9 By the late 1970s, a new organizational paradigm became dominant and remained the norm until the early 2000s. Textbooks contained a unit on the post-1945 world, organized mostly on regional lines. The 1983 text World History: Patterns of Civilization, for instance, contained a unit entitled “The World Today” with six chapters focusing on Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the United States, and the Age of Exploration.10 While this approach allowed for significantly enhanced representation of the non-Western world, it also created two problems. First, this approach fragmented contemporary content along regional lines, preventing a global perspective on recent events. Second, textbooks typically framed these contemporary chapters on the post1945 world, meaning that they had to include greater and greater amounts of historical content into a single chapter as time went on. It was not until the 2016 adoption period that some Texas World History textbooks departed from this way of organizing contemporary material. In that year, two textbooks organized a recent events chapter on the world since either 1980 or 1989.11 In Texas, textbooks generally go through the adoption process only once or twice a decade, and the precise date of publication significantly affects information on the contemporary world. In my analysis, this was most noticeable in the adoption periods of 1948 and 1990. Textbooks in 1948 came out just before the communist takeover of China in 1949, and the 1990 textbooks were written after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but before the collapse of the Soviet Union. But though the vicissitudes of the adoption process certainly affected textbook content on contemporary events, these adopted textbooks nevertheless provide evidence of how

Modern Problems  147 textbook authors, educators, and members of the Texas State Board of Education understood the shifting challenges of the modern world.

Interwar Anxiety: Was the United States Up to the Challenge of the Modern World? During the interwar period (1918–1939), Texas World History textbooks expressed anxiety regarding the global future of democracy due to perceptions of both internal and external dangers. Externally, World History textbooks noted the growing challenges posed by the Bolshevik Revolution and the rise of fascism, as well as greater and greater signs of colonial unrest. Internally, textbook authors of the 1930s grappled with the Great Depression. These deep-seated anxieties often served to justify U.S. activity on the global stage, or to encourage students to become more deeply committed to democracy at home. Interestingly, the very first textbooks recommended for World History in Texas, written just a few years after the conclusion of World War I, were highly optimistic about the prospects for democracy, at least in Europe. Textbooks written by Hutton Webster and Henry Elson distinguished between the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, noting that popular representation was far more common in the latter conference. For Elson, this meant that “the government of the nations has passed from the hands of royal rulers to the hands of the people.”12 This democratic expansion was limited to Europe, since the rest of the world barely rated a mention in these initial texts. But as applied to Europe, early World History textbooks accepted the idea that the First World War was a victory for democracy. But the First World War also created the greatest threat to global democracy: socialism. All three of the early 1920s textbooks noted that the Soviet Bolshevik Party was a radical form of socialism, rather than a normal or traditional version of it. In his book World History, Hutton Webster made the case that the major difference between moderate and radical socialists was in their methodology. Moderate socialists used democratic means to achieve their objectives, whereas radical socialists were willing to violently overthrow the capitalist middle class.13 Our World Today and Yesterday made an even broader distinction between conservatives and radicals, largely differentiated by the speed with which they wanted reform to take place. The book suggested that there were a wide variety of ‘mild socialists’ across Europe, including in England.14 The British Labor Party, for instance, did not support the idea of class warfare advocated by the Bolshevik Party.15 Textbook authors of the 1920s and early 1930s were able to distinguish between different varieties of socialism and communism, a nuanced sensibility that would largely disappear in later adoption periods.

148  Modern Problems Written a decade later, the next wave of recommended World History textbooks in Texas was far more anxious about the prospects for both democracy and capitalism, with authors nervously responding to threats posed by the Great Depression, communist rule in Soviet Russia, and the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany. World History textbooks of the time also began to discuss nationalism in colonial settings like India and Egypt. This prompted musings about the sustainability of European imperialism, and the possibility of extending democracy to at least some nonWestern settings. Textbooks of the early 1930s acknowledged that the Great Depression showcased the dangers of capitalism, though they differed in their precise interpretations of how to meet the crisis. Clarence Perkins’ 1934 text Man’s Advancing Civilization remained optimistic even in the face of threats posed by fascist and communist dictatorships. This was because, according to the text, the United States had special advantages in preserving and promoting democracy at home and abroad, including ‘intelligent settlers’ from Europe, and the relative youth of the country, which shed much of the undesirable characteristics of older European civilization aside. Indeed, according to the author, the “Americas seem to offer the greatest hope for the development of democracy in the future.” Perkins confidently asserted that “hard times cannot be permanent in such a country as America, for certainly there is plenty of everything for everyone.”16 Other texts argued that democratic capitalist societies needed to demonstrate the superiority of their systems in the face of new threats. In 1932, Edwin Pahlow noted surprise at finding “undemocratic developments” in “important” parts of the world.17 Critically, he argued that the global competition between capitalist democracy, on the one hand, and communism and fascism on the other, could not be won by force, but only “by a better set of ideas.”18 In other words, it was not self-evident that European and American capitalist democracies were in fact stronger systems, capable of ensuring employment and the happiness of citizens. Democratic governments had to demonstrate their superiority to global alternatives of governance. Interestingly, there was a notable shift in tone with the 1938 version of the same text. In that edition, Pahlow extolled the virtues of capitalism, saying that the “amazing benefits” of free enterprise “stand out boldly and gloriously” with a long-term world historical perspective. In the updated version, the author argued that reforms to capitalism reduced the economic hardships of the Depression and could successfully meet the challenge of dictatorships.19 The progressive textbook Units in World History by John Greenan and  J. Madison Gathany took this reformist impulse to the furthest extent  of any World History textbook recommended in Texas during the 1930s. The authors argued that the Depression was an opportunity to  address some of the significant inequalities inherent to capitalism.

Modern Problems  149 Franklin  Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal augured a new age in which unregulated capitalism and production would be replaced. “Greater cooperation for the good of all would have to replace selfish individualism.”20 Greenan and Gathany argued that the solution to the problems of over-production and the Great Depression was not to embrace socialism, but instead to “socialize capitalistic society.”21 This extraordinary statement was in line with the Texas State Superintendent of Public Instruction L.A. Woods, who thought that education needed to move away from “rugged individualism to that of collectivism.”22 It also echoed the critique of capitalism made by the famous and controversial educator and textbook author Harold Rugg during the 1930s.23 Though they did not go quite so far as Units in World History, other World History textbooks noted the sweeping economic reforms initiated by the New Deal of the 1930s. The authors of the 1935 text World History described a shift in economic practices away from laissez-faire capitalist policies as people “demand[ed] that government do something to cure the ills of unemployment and the injustices of poverty.”24 The more conservative author R.O. Hughes noted a similar tendency but was not optimistic about the success of FDR’s New Deal policies. Hughes questioned whether the president’s policies were sound, or if economic recovery should have preceded reform efforts.25 For World History textbooks of the 1930s, the rise of dictatorships was just as grave of a threat to democracy as the Great Depression posed to capitalism. The key question for multiple authors was this: could democracy be as efficient as dictatorship? Edwin Pahlow’s 1932 analysis was fairly nuanced in its treatment of the challenge of dictatorship. He acknowledged that capitalistic and democratic systems had inherent weaknesses.26 Part of the problem, according to this account, was that too many people thought that democracy was simply about giving people a vote. He argued that democracy was, in fact, a way of living, in which “every individual will have the fullest opportunity to develop his personality.”27 For Pahlow, the survival of democracy was very much in doubt. Students were encouraged to form “sincere convictions” and act on them to preserve democracy in the face of significant challenges. Taking on a strident tone, Units in World History similarly enjoined students to practices “in which the enemies of self-government can be routed.”28 Emphasizing the famous quotation that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” students were told to wage war upon ignorance and be on alert to punish any government official who betrayed the public trust.29 Even more zealously, the text mandated that anyone who did not  participate in democratic elections “must be branded as traitors to  democracy.”30 The authors argued that dictatorships were a danger to  world peace, and could only work in places with mostly illiterate populations.

150  Modern Problems Dictatorial regimes threatened democracy during the 1930s, but so too did the rising strength of global anti-colonial nationalist movements. Textbooks of the era often held two interconnected positions on the relationship between democracy and nationalism in Asia. First, they suggested that non-Western peoples were manifestly not ready for independent democratic governance. Secondly, they made the case that the seemingly unstoppable spread of nationalism created conditions for major upheaval, and portended a wave of inopportune conflict. In his text The March of Civilization, for instance, Jesse Wrench argued that the most pressing problem facing the world was that of democracy in the non-Western world. Wrench called it unfortunate that there were “backward countries” where “the masses are so ignorant” that extending democracy proved quite impossible.31 But non-Western unpreparedness for democracy was made vastly more complicated by the powerful spread of nationalism the world over. According to Wrench, the “urge of nationality” caused peoples to become restless under imperial control, creating “abundant opportunities for upheaval.”32 In World History textbooks of the 1930s, both conservative and progressive authors agreed that struggles for national independence were premature. Despite their strongly progressive perspective, John Greenan and J. Madison Gathany found anti-colonial nationalism problematic. On the one hand, the spread of nationalism meant an increase in democratic beliefs. But on the other, it demonstrated that so-called “backward peoples” preferred “inefficient self-government to efficient government by outsiders.”33 R.O. Hughes’ The Making of Today’s World made the case that self-determination was appropriate in some cases but not in others. He rhetorically asked: “If India should become completely self-governing, would there not be numerous problems of self-determination within parts of India?”34 In another section, Hughes argued that this was the result of Western education. “As backward peoples pick up good things and bad things from stronger powers, they more and more want to look out for themselves.”35 For the conservative author Hughes, deeply alarmed by the threats of communism and fascism abroad as well as what he saw as the dangerous trends of the New Deal era, it was evident that self-determination should not extend beyond Europe. The first textbook adoption period following the Second World War began in 1948, as tensions with the Soviet Union were escalating but had not fully frozen into the global Cold War. These textbooks were, in many ways, transitional texts embodying some pre-war tropes but also pioneering new ways of conceptualizing global history. The texts spent significant attention on the military events of the Second World War, but all included some content on the post-war world. Textbook authors consistently wrote about the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a key moment in world history. One text declared the

Modern Problems  151 opening of the Atomic Age, in which humanity had control over the “inexhaustible power stored in the material universe,” but also the power to “wipe out civilization itself.”36 When speaking about contemporary times, World History textbooks published in the late 1940s also considered the post-war health of global democracy, and the continued threats posed by communism and nationalism. In some cases, the introspective focus on democracy continued in much the same manner as Depression-era textbooks. The 1947 text World History by Arthur Boak and a group of co-authors, for instance, warned students that to protect their democratic way of living, they must stay “vigilant, intelligent, responsible, [and] disciplined.”37 The 1947 text This Our World: A Pageant of World History continued the civic-minded approach which offered a critique of democracy. The trio of authors from the University of Pennsylvania made the case that transitioning back to a peacetime economy would challenge American society to strike a fair balance between equality and freedom. According to the text, the American “people will have to decide which of these they wish to emphasize, or how the two can be reconciled.”38 Maintaining robust democratic practices continued to be a theme for several textbooks in the late 1940s. For others, the Second World War demonstrated the superiority of democratic capitalism. In melodramatic terms, the 1946 text World History: The Struggle for Civilization made the case that the war pitted the “free peoples of the earth” against the “evil forces that would have enslaved the world” in the greatest struggle for civilization that the world had ever seen.39 Another textbook of the late 1940s suggested that “in her efforts to defend herself and to aid the oppressed nations of the world, the United States is doing everything possible to keep the torch of freedom lighted in order that democracy may endure.”40 For these authors, the central task of the United States was not protecting democracy from internal decay, but an external focus on rebuilding a war-torn world and ensuring the global expansion and preservation of democracy. All of the texts adopted for use in 1948 noted the rising tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. One 1947 text suggested that after World War II, “the peace of the world depended chiefly on the relations between the Soviet Union and the English-speaking nations.”41 Growing hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union was certainly worrisome but had not yet become the primary lens through which World History textbook authors interpreted the entire course, as would become common in the 1950s and 1960s. The World History textbooks adopted in 1948 also discussed the continuing issue of anti-colonial nationalism, especially in Asia. Textbook authors grappled with strengthened independence movements in Asia, but still accepted European colonial domination over Africa. A 1947 text claimed that the First World War and European imperialism fomented

152  Modern Problems nationalist activity throughout the interwar period and into the postwar world, “until there is scarcely a people which is not actuated by such hopes.”42 The authors suggested that the growth of nationalism, which they believed often became “a narrow, selfish patriotism,” lessened the spirit of international cooperation that had seemed so powerful with the creation of the League of Nations.43 The 1947 text World History argued that China would be the key to Asia’s independent future, but that China needed to unify and industrialize before that global role could be fully realized.44 The authors portrayed communist forces in China as nothing more than “hungry and angry peasants” who wanted more land. The Chinese Nationalist Party, on the other hand, despite rhetorically supporting democracy, in reality, embodied one-party rule “similar to the controlling group in Russia.”45 The conflict was a painful one, but the authors confidently claimed that the process signaled the difficult “transformation of China from a civilized but backward and unprogressive country to a modern democratic nation.”46 This would not be the last textbook to place faith in the eventual triumph of democracy in China.

Bipolarity and the Triumph of Western Civilization, 1950s–1980s The next three adoption periods, in 1954, 1962, and 1971, witnessed a bifurcated approach to depictions of the contemporary world in Texas World History textbooks. On the one hand, textbooks of the period spent significant time and attention on the growing Cold War conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.47 This content envisioned a global bipolar framework pitting capitalist democracy against dictatorial communism. On the other hand, World History textbook authors largely understood decolonization as an extension of the global spread of Western civilization. Though World History textbooks acknowledged that these two processes intersected at various points, they narrated global events with separate explanatory frameworks. One saw the threat to capitalism and democracy posed by international communism, the other viewed the success of nationalism as a triumph for Western Civilization and democracy. Both narratives implicitly acknowledged or called for the global engagement of the United States to either resist communism or aid newly independent countries so that they could become successful Western capitalist democracies. The global Cold War powerfully found its way into Texas classrooms during the 1950s and 1960s, as fears of communist subversion in the schools rose to a fever pitch. Andrew Hartman argues that there was a national assault on progressive education, which in altered form took on a far more conservative and stridently anti-communist tone. American schools “facilitated the construction of ‘cold warriors’ conditioned to fear and loathe communism, the Soviet Union, and more nebulously,

Modern Problems  153 leftist ideas in general.”48 Teachers, textbook authors, and textbooks themselves all experienced unprecedented scrutiny. To counteract the supposed threat, the state of Texas passed a NonSubversive Oath law requiring all teachers to publicly affirm that they were not members of the Communist Party. The State Board of Education passed this requirement on to publishers, who had to show proof that textbook authors signed the same oath, or the books would not be considered by the State Textbook Committee. But even these measures were not enough. Every textbook also had to pass a careful close reading by about 200 members of the State Textbook Committee and their advisors, who were dedicated to “detecting any subversive materials in textbooks up for adoption.”49 Every World History textbook approved in Texas during the 1950s and 1960s mentioned the global conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, and by the 1962 adoption period, some textbooks began devoting whole chapters to the conflict.50 When speaking about these tensions, authors mostly embraced a nationalist tone, highlighting the aggression of the Soviet Union and the courageous defense of democracy led by the United States. For Anatole Mazour and John Peoples, authors of the 1960 text Story of Nations, “the cold war is a struggle rooted deeply in the minds of men. It is a conflict between the democratic way of life and the Communist pattern, a conflict between those who want to defend the rights of man and those who would destroy individual liberty.”51 According to the authors, the United States needed to accept “the responsibility of leadership of the Western democracies” to make the world safe from communist aggression.52 Two features of this narrative are worth noting. First, the introspective assessment of the weaknesses of democracy that featured prominently in interwar textbooks was notably absent. World History textbook authors like Mazour and Peoples refrained from criticizing American democracy or suggesting improvements at home, focusing instead on the external threat of communism. Second, the narrative of the Cold War assigned an international role for the United States as a defender of democracy against potential communist subversion. In some cases, textbook authors justified the study and practice of World History as a critical necessity for young people who would grow to adulthood during this conflict. Writing in 1952, R.O. Hughes made the case that The United States… has been thrust into a leading role on the stage of modern history. In order to play our part in world affairs we should know well what our part is… Our land is the land of the free, the land of hope for oppressed peoples everywhere. That is one reason why our emphasis in this book is on the story of other peoplesthat we may truly see and understand the world-setting in which we find ourselves today.53

154  Modern Problems In the era of the Cold War, knowledge of the world was essential for understanding America’s global role, and therefore critical for American citizenship. Textbook authors of the 1950s and 1960s also noted the significance of decolonization, which did not neatly fit into the story of the global Cold War.54 Authors like T. Walter Wallbank and James Quillen made the case that decolonization would accelerate the spread of democracy, but that this process could be endangered by communist aggression. He explained that nationalism “was an idea imported from Europe. So was democracy, the watchword of freedom.”55 The authors contended that communism appealed because it “promised to the poor and downtrodden people of Asia and eastern Europe the chance to take for themselves the riches of their masters.”56 This became a common theme of other textbooks discussing the danger of communism in newly decolonized nations. The 1961 version of The History of Our World expounded upon this theme, saying: Wherever people are hungry, ill-clothed and ill-housed, and resentful of outside control, Communists try to worm their way in. Southeast Asia therefore became a fruitful field for Communist activity. It was easy to persuade downtrodden people of this area that communism was the cure for all their troubles. The Communists have sought to use the nationalist movements in the various countries of southeastern Asia to further their own plans.57 This line of thinking suggested that anti-colonial nationalist movements were particularly susceptible to communist propaganda, especially if that movement had generated deep-seated anger at European colonizers. The rhetoric took a strongly paternalistic view of newly independent peoples, who were rarely depicted as agents in their own story. The danger of communist subversion in the non-Western world provided Texas World History textbook authors an opportunity to highlight a global role for the United States, which could ensure that new nations got “a good start” so that they could avoid “the slavery of a Communist state.”58 The 1961 text The Record of Mankind echoed this sentiment, suggesting that in the post-WWII era, “it became obvious that the free world’s self-interest demanded help for the underprivileged. They might fall for communism’s phony promises unless the democratic nations helped them gain both bread and freedom.”59 The solution, according to this textbook, was greatly increased aid to “backward areas.”60 Through the provision of technical assistance and monetary aid, the United States would ensure the economic stability, and hence democratic ability, of newly independent nations. The discourses of bipolarity and of the diffusion of democracy were far less powerful in the two subsequent adoption periods of 1977 and 1984.

Modern Problems  155 World events like Détente, Vietnam, the Sino-Soviet split, and the fissures within N.A.T.O. all challenged rigid bipolar thinking. Textbooks increasingly focused on development or modernization as the key to the newly independent world, a necessary process by which all nations needed to travel in order to become stable, well-adjusted capitalist democracies. Gerald Leinwand’s The Pageant of World History provides a useful example of this transition period for World History textbooks in Texas. For Leinwand, issues of nationalism, communism, democracy, and development were all intertwined in the contemporary world of the later 1970s. In the final chapter of The Pageant of World History, he demonstrated the interconnections between these issues with a passage that bears quoting at length: In Asia and Africa, yellow-skinned people and dark-skinned people have not taken part in the Scientific Revolution and desperately wish to do so. They believe that the white people of the West have held them back, and they are determined to be held back no longer. Foreign-controlled people are demanding independence so as to try to catch up, but they wish to use their own rules…They seem to be willing to pay a price to gain independence. At times that price appears to be dictatorship and/or communism. Must this be so? Can democracy and capitalism supply the answers for which the people of Asia and Africa are looking? These are underlying problems of modern times.61 The great challenge of modernity was finding a way to meet the demands of Asian and African peoples to share in the material benefits of scientific discovery that had long been denied them. This fueled their critique of imperialism and often led them to ‘extremes’ including communist dictatorships. The author ended the passage by questioning whether democracy or capitalism was up to the challenge of supplying the non-Western world with the rapid development that anti-colonial nationalists so desperately wanted. Compared to this struggle for development, the Cold War seemed far less relevant. Leinwand noted attempts at détente between the United States and the U.S.S.R., but also continued competition. Though there could be no answer to the question of whether the Cold War would end soon, Leinwand argued that “what is clear is that the countries of the world will turn to those great powers which can help them get the food, clothing, and shelter their peoples need.”62 In other words, economic development of non-Western countries was a key driver of global history in contemporary times. Pioneering world historian William McNeill’s The Ecumene: The Story of Humanity similarly demonstrated the diminishing power of previous frameworks and a renewed focus on the rhetoric of development.

156  Modern Problems He highlighted the fissures within the Cold War alliances and the clear weakness of the two superpowers, each of whom looked “like a fumbling, muscle-bound giant, afraid of his own strength as well as of his enemy’s” as a result of their nuclear stalemate.63 McNeill lobbied for the superiority of liberal, pluralist, and democratic governments, but suggested that “democratic pluralism requires an act of commitment on the part of the public” that must be renewed with each generation. If this renewed commitment failed to materialize, authoritarian governments would “presumably become universal, as they have been at most times in the past.”64 But even with his calls for the regeneration of democracy, McNeill argued that the main driver of difference and conflict in the world of the 1970s was inequality. He made a distinction between rich and poor, industrial and agricultural countries. It was incredibly difficult for the poorer countries to escape. “No sooner has a poor country painfully learned how to make something according to the latest and most efficient methods when someone improves upon the process, or finds a cheaper or better substitute.”65 Development programs had to this point failed to significantly reduce the gap between rich and poor, which only seemed to widen in the non-Western world. Textbooks of the 1984 adoption period noted the worsening relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, but also stressed the widening gap between wealthy and poor countries as a key concern in global affairs. The text History and Life: The World and Its People, for instance, noted that: the Third World countries insisted that the world economy be reshaped so that they would receive a larger share of the world’s resources and wealth. They pointed out that they had benefited very little from the remarkable economic advances made in industrial countries after World War II.66 The problems of global economic inequality had to be addressed through foreign aid and development projects. World History textbooks from the 1950s through the 1980s underwent a remarkable shift as authors wrote and quickly re-wrote their narratives to keep pace with swiftly changing world events. Until the late 1970s, World History textbooks frequently relied on the metanarratives of Cold War bipolarity and the discourse of Western Civilization to explain a rapidly changing world. But by the late 1970s, challenged by fractures in both the Eastern and Western blocs, as well as by devastating poverty in the Third World, these narratives lost some of their explanatory power. While noting these trends, I think it is also important to not overestimate the significance of this rhetorical shift. Textbooks pivoted to the language of development and modernization, but in practice, these

Modern Problems  157 labels functioned synonymously with Western. Nevertheless, the focus on economic inequality stoked anxieties about the global health of capitalism, often viewed as a prerequisite for the expansion of democracy. The next section demonstrates that concerns over the health and vitality of both democracy and capitalism continued even as the Cold War ended.

Contemporary Events in the Era of the TEKS The textbook adoption period of 1990 was the first in which World History textbooks were created with the state-mandated Essential Elements in mind.67 From the outset, these state standards made the preservation of capitalism and democracy lynchpins of not just the World History course, but of the entire social studies curriculum in Texas public schools. Every social studies course was required to teach students to “support the democratic processes of the republican form of government,” and to uphold the “basic values of American society.”68 The Essential Elements also required each course to support the American economic system. This involved ten sub-points including support for “the role of profit in the American market system.”69 These general features of the social studies curriculum also figured prominently into the World History curriculum, where students were required to, among other things “explain the positive aspects and effects of American capitalism upon the world.”70 By state mandate, World History textbooks needed to extoll the virtues of capitalism and democracy, with little space or concern for critique or thoughtful introspection. Responding to the swift collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, World History textbooks approved in 1990 wrote with a sense of guarded optimism about a global resurgence of democracy. All textbooks highlighted the Soviet reforms of glasnost and perestroika under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, and those published last noted the sweeping move toward democracy in Eastern Europe. World History: Peoples and Nations optimistically noted that “democracy appeared attainable… Although few experts believed that the cold war was indeed over, most hoped that the ‘Iron Curtain’ that had sliced through Europe for more than 40 years was disintegrating.”71 The Houghton Mifflin textbook History of the World was the most effusive text in noting a global trend toward democracy. In a section entitled “The Move Toward Freedom,” the authors suggested that: It is possible, nevertheless, to look at the world today with some optimism. While some areas of the world remain trapped in poverty and repression, people in many lands have made promising advances toward a better life. The danger of nuclear war continues to threaten all people, rich or poor. Yet the recent changes in the Communist

158  Modern Problems nations may pave the way not only for more freedom in the world but also for improved relations between the superpowers.72 As evidence, they pointed out that the Philippines had recently become more democratic, and authoritarian regimes in Asia and Latin America faced growing pressure to expand democratic governance.73 The idea of a global move toward democracy became an even more pronounced theme in the next adoption period of 1999. Democracy seemed to be on the move for authors in the 1990 adoption period, necessitating an even greater emphasis on the rhetoric of development and modernization. Stable capitalist democracies required nations to embrace ‘modernity,’ but this clashed with non-Western peoples with so-called ‘traditional’ ways of life. According to the book World History: Perspectives on the Past, for instance: in many countries, the transition to independence has brought rapid modernization...The result is a culture in transition- with ox-drawn carts and motorcycles jostling for position on dusty village roads, soft-drink cans littering refugee camps in the drought-stricken Sahel, and farmers listening to radios while harvesting millet by hand, just as their great-grandfathers had done a century earlier.74 Multiple World History textbooks adopted in 1990 envisioned a tension between traditional societies and the modern world.75 By stressing a culture clash, World History textbooks could thereby minimize problems in the Third World as one of resistance to the obviously superior modern (read Western) world. They therefore did not have to seriously acknowledge or analyze the ways in which modern/Western wealth had historical roots in the domination of the non-Western world or the systemic inequalities of the global economy. This interpretation also relied on a particular way of thinking about historical time, with traditional societies embracing a bygone era rather than the forward march of progress in the modern era.76 World History textbooks of the early 1990s were especially encouraged by the emerging capitalist economies of the Pacific Rim. The 1989 textbook World History: Traditions and New Directions provides a useful example. The authors declared that the “future of Asian nations has never seemed brighter,” particularly in the nations of the Pacific Rim.77 As a result of astonishingly rapid economic growth, Asia was likely to become far more important to world affairs. In fact, the authors claimed that “never before has any non-Western region exercised the influence over the world economy, culture, and society that Asia wields in the 1980s.”78 Though hyperbolic, this claim fit in well with a narrative that praised non-Western nations for embracing industrialization and Western economic practices.

Modern Problems  159 In general, World History textbooks assumed that economic modernization led inevitably to political democracy, and only occasionally saw these as two separate processes. But if Pacific Rim countries had embraced modernization, and modernization translated to capitalist democracy, why, then, did this not result in stable and long-lasting democracies in Asia? Anatole Mazour and John People’s text World History: People and Nations most directly tackled this question. Pointing to communist regimes in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, and authoritarian tendencies in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Burma, they suggested that ethnic and cultural diversity, a fear of national security, and a desire for economic growth prevented the establishment of democracy in these countries. The authors acknowledged that authoritarianism led to rapid economic growth in some cases, but had only done so at the expense of individual rights and freedoms.79 The next two adoption periods (1999 and 2003) continued many of the trends of the early 1990s, and will be considered together in this analysis.80 All of the adopted textbooks noted a global trend toward democracy. World History: Patterns of interaction contained one of the most extraordinary discussions of global democratization in that adoption period. The book dedicated an entire chapter to “Struggles for Democracy, 1945–Present,” and opened it with a section on what makes democracies work. The authors emphasized democracy as an ideal and a way of life in addition to being a system of government and discussed the fundamental norms of democracy.81 The book’s discussion of democracy contained a civics-minded approach that was strikingly reminiscent of textbook narratives of the interwar period. But, rather than only discussing democracy in Europe or North America, the authors provided a series of global case studies on democracy. The rest of the chapter examined case studies in Latin America, South Africa, the Soviet Union, and former Soviet satellite states, and ended with a consideration of democracy in China. Since World History textbooks of the late 1990s and early 2000s stressed the global spread of democracy, they had a hard time grappling with post-Tiananmen Square China. Some authors confidently predicted that democracy would come to China, but that it was simply taking more time than usual. World History: Patterns of Interaction noted the harsh crackdown on pro-democracy protestors in Tiananmen Square in 1989, but also the stunning success of Chinese economic reforms. The authors concluded by saying that “the desire for freedom still ran through Chinese society,” and that “the case of China demonstrates that the creation of democracy can be a slow, fitful, and incomplete process.”82 With similar confidence, another textbook declared that “as economic reforms continued, pressure for political reforms would grow, too.”83 Other World History textbook authors were not so sure that continued economic reform would bring democracy to China. The text World History: Continuity and Change argued that the expansion of democracy

160  Modern Problems was intimately linked to the “general recognition of the failure of socialist economic models and the success of free-market principles.”84 The authors characterized China as a “holdout on democracy,” bucking the global trend. And there were other holdouts, according to the authors, including: Muslim revolutionaries limited democratic participation to varying degrees in Iran and Sudan, for example, while older revolutionary dictatorships continued in Syria and Iraq…The world was becoming more democratic as the year 2000 approached, but it still had a long way to go.85 Underlying this assessment was an assumption that history was marching inevitably toward democracy. Countries or regions without democratic governments did not have ideologies or systems to be taken as serious alternatives, they were just behind the historical curve. Textbooks adopted in 2003 replicated the content of their 1999 predecessors, but with some notable additional content, overtly patriotic in tone, responding to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Glencoe World History, for instance, included a description of flag etiquette, the statement known as ‘the American’s Creed,’ as well as the Star-Spangled Banner. World History: Patterns of Interaction contained an ‘epilogue’ with about 15 pages of content on the September 11th terrorist attacks. Textbooks adopted in 2016 were the first books formally approved under the controversial 2010 Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) curriculum guidelines. The TEKS continued the long-standing practice of requiring students to understand “the benefits of free enterprise in world history.”86 There was a terminology shift as communist economies were increasingly referred to as ‘command economies,’ and a new sub-element within the TEKS required students to “explain why communist command economies collapsed in competition with free market economies” by the end of the 20th century.87 Approved textbooks took these requirements to heart, as all three of the textbooks studied for this analysis contained direct comparisons between ‘command economies’ and ‘free market economies.’88 A good example of this comes from Jackson Spielvogel’s textbook World History, which assured students that “while free market economies grew, command economies stagnated” in the 20th century.89 The book listed numerous benefits of the free market, including the openness to change, higher standard of living, higher income, and greater access to consumer goods. Command economies, too reliant on centralized planning and lacking in innovation, lagged significantly behind capitalist nations.90

Modern Problems  161 The textbook World History by Elizabeth Gaynor Ellis and Anthony Esler explored the distinction between command and free market economies in the developing world. For these authors, democracy and free trade paved the way for an increasingly interdependent global economy, one that benefited the wealthy industrialized nations far more than poorer traditional economies.91 The textbook argued that nations working toward development in Asia, Africa, and Latin America often had traditional economies, but were striving to modernize. Sometimes, they chose to replace “traditional and market economies with government-led command economies.” According to the authors, this choice had negative consequences. Command economies in the developing world fell into heavy debt, land redistribution failed to increase productivity, and significantly diminished the wealth of the upper classes. But by the early 21st century, many of these developing countries shifted back to the free market, which attracted increased investment from wealthy countries.92 Textbook narratives describing the benefits of free enterprise versus command economies tend to be simplistic and overtly ideological. One major issue is that counterexamples are only rarely considered. For instance, the spectacular economic success of China since the 1980s occurred while under an authoritarian regime that carefully controlled and monitored economic output. At the same time, one could point to several examples of countries in, say, Latin America in the 1980s or Eastern Europe in the 1990s, where free market reforms led to significant economic hardships.

Conclusion For the past century, World History textbooks in Texas have expressed a high degree of anxiety over the fate of global democracy and capitalism in their content coverage of contemporary events. In line with the progressive progenitors of the World History course, the earliest textbooks took on a tone of introspection, as students were encouraged to ask whether democracy could be as efficient as dictatorship, and to reflect upon the economic inequalities that led to the Great Depression. These textbooks contained a nuanced understanding of communism, distinguishing between moderate and extreme expressions of that ideology. By the 1950s, however, the introspective framing of the interwar period was replaced with confidence in the righteousness of democracy combined with an escalating anxiety about the global Cold War. World History textbooks framed contemporary content with a bipolar mindset, but also discussed how the newly decolonizing world could be led toward capitalist democracy. Texts stressed the need for development or modernization as a key to the success of capitalist democracy in formerly colonized territories. These twin frameworks persisted even in textbooks

162  Modern Problems created after the Cold War. Students today are exposed to textbooks that warn them of the dangers of ‘command economies,’ and coverage of the non-Western world is still suffused with the rhetoric of a traditional/ modern division in the world. As they depicted contemporary events, Texas World History textbooks exhibited three root assumptions for most of the past century. One was a baseline presumption of the superiority of American capitalist democracy. This trend is evident even during the more introspective interwar period but has become far more pronounced since the Second World War. The assumption of superiority, combined with a reticence to offer meaningful critiques of the functionality of American democracy at home or actions abroad, colors content coverage of contemporary events. Secondly, World History textbooks generally conflate capitalism with democracy, as if the two processes are necessarily inseparable. This assumption shapes narratives about the non-Western world in particular. Depictions of China, for instance, sometimes assume a move toward democracy based on this assumption rather than a consideration of available historical evidence. Finally, World History textbooks embrace a linear conception of historical progress. This allows extreme inequality, poverty, and instability to be explained by the unseen and faceless force of history. If countries in the non-Western world experience hardships, it is only because they have not fully embraced ‘modern’ capitalist democracy. But this insistence on a dichotomy or a choice between ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’ obscures the reality of a global capitalist economy in which poor export-oriented nations find it extremely difficult to escape high levels of poverty even if they embrace capitalism and democracy. Inconvenient cases that might undermine these assumptions are omitted or glossed over. The narratives regarding capitalist democracy embedded within World History textbooks justify a global role for American action in the world. In Texas World History textbooks, America was the protector or preserver of democracy, the defender of capitalism, and a patron to newly independent countries. This rosy interpretation often overlooked or marginalized the very real instances where American actions abroad stymied the growth of democracy or the exercise of free trade. That educational materials in a publicly funded system tend to reinforce the existing political order is not particularly surprising, and this chapter is not meant to disparage the significance or worth of democratic forms of governance. But World History textbooks all too often lack an effective and critical perspective on this vital topic. These textbooks therefore offer a shallow understanding of the global strength of capitalist democracy, which poorly prepares students for effective citizenship. Perhaps World History educators today might learn something from their predecessors in the earliest days of the World History course, who supported democracy but also acknowledged its faults and encouraged students to consider ways it might be strengthened.

Modern Problems  163

Notes 1 “Social Studies in the Secondary Schools,” Texas State Department of Education Bulletin no. 503 (1949): 157. 2 “Social Studies in the Secondary Schools,” Texas State Department of Education Bulletin no. 503 (1949): 86. 3 There are two general exceptions to this. Two of the first three textbooks ever recommended for use in World History in Texas in the 1920s discussed contemporary events within ten years of publication, but did not contain separate chapters self-consciously on the contemporary world. Henry W. Elson, Modern Times and the Living Past (New York: American Book Company, 1921); Hutton Webster, World History (Boston: D.C. Heath & Col., Publishers, 1921). The second are regionally organized textbooks, though they, too, contained significant attention to contemporary events. For a full list of these textbooks, see Appendix A. 4 For more context, see Chapters 2 and 3 on the emergence of the course and the emphasis on democracy over the past century. 5 Texas Education Agency, Chapter 113: Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies (Austin: Texas Education Agency, 2010), 16. 6 For more on this, see Martin Alm, “Europe in American World History Textbooks,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies 12, no. 3 (2014): 237–257; Ross Dunn, “The Two World Histories,” Social Education 72, no. 5 (2008): 257– 263; William McNeill, “The Changing Shape of World History,” History and Theory 34, no. 2 (1995): 8–26; Peter Stearns, Western Civilization in World History (New York: Routledge, 2003). 7 See, for instance, John T. Greenan and J. Madison Gathany, Units in World History: Development of Modern Europe (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1934), 610. 8 Arthur Boak, Preston Slosson, and Howard Anderson, The History of Our World (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961), Table of Contents. 9 Ethel Ewing, Our Widening World, Second Edition (New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1961), Table of Contents. 10 Burton Beers, World History: Patterns of Civilization (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1983), Table of Contents. 11 Elizabeth Gaynor Ellis and Anthony Esler, World History (Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2016); Jackson Spielvogel and Jay McTighe, World History (Bothell, WA: McGraw-Hill Education, 2016). Note that Texas World History (Orlando: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2016) contains the same organization as earlier texts published by McDougal Little in 1999 and 2003. Roger Beck, Linda Black, Philip Naylor, and Dahia Shabaka, World History: Patterns of Interaction (Evanston: McDougal Little, 1999). 12 Elson, Modern Times and the Living Past 1921 Edition, 702. 13 Webster, World History, 720. 14 James Harvey Robinson, Emma Peters Smith, and James Henry Breasted, Our World Today and Yesterday: A History of Modern Civilization (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1924), 608. 15 Ibid, 621. 16 Clarence Perkins, Man’s Advancing Civilization (New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1934), 825. 17 Edwin Pahlow, Man’s Great Adventure: An Introduction to World History (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1932), 815. 18 Pahlow, Man’s Great Adventure 1932 Edition, 818. 19 Edwin Pahlow, Man’s Great Adventure, Revised Edition (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1938), iii.

164  Modern Problems 0 Greenan and Gathany, Units in World History, 599. 2 21 Ibid, 599. 22 W.A. Stigler, “Handbook for Curriculum Study,” State Department of Education Bulletin no. 336 (1934): 14. 23 For more on Harold Rugg, see Ronald W. Evans, This Happened in America: Harold Rugg and the Censure of Social Studies (Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, 2007). 24 Carlton Hayes, Parker Thomas Moon, and John Wayland, World History (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1935), 861. 25 R.O. Hughes, The Making of Today’s World (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1935), 796. 26 Pahlow, Man’s Great Adventure 1932 Edition, 821. 27 Ibid, 828. 28 Greenan and Gathany, Units in World History, 629. 29 A quotation often misattributed to Thomas Jefferson. See “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty (Spurious Quotation),” The Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia, Monticello.org. https://www.monticello.org/site/research-andcollections/eternal-vigilance-price-liberty-spurious-quotation#footnote1_tp43obf Accessed January, 2022. 30 Greenan and Gathany, Units in World History, 630. 31 Jesse Wrench, The March of Civilization: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern World (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1931), 816. 32 Wrench, The March of Civilization, 818. 33 Greenan and Gathany, Units in World History, 618. 34 Hughes, The Making of Today’s World 1935 Edition, 751. 35 Ibid, 797. 36 Emma Peters Smith, David Saville Muzzey, and Minnie Lloyd, World History: The Struggle for Civilization (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1946), 812. 37 Arthur Boak, Preston Slosson, and Howard Anderson, World History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947), 583. 38 Arthur Bining, Arthur Howland, and Richard Shryock, This Our World: A Pageant of World History (New York: Newson & Company, 1947), 643. 39 Smith, Muzzey, and Lloyd, World History, 812. 40 Bining, Howland, and Shryock, This Our World 1947 Edition, 537. 41 Boak, Slosson, and Anderson, World History 1947 Edition, 569. 42 Bining, Howard, and Shryock, This Our World 1947 Edition, 500. 43 Ibid, 554. 44 Boak, Slosson, and Anderson, World History 1947 Edition, 567. 45 Ibid, 568. 46 Ibid, 1947, 568. 47 For a general introduction to the global Cold War, see Edward H. Judge and John W. Langdon, A Hard and Bitter Peace: A Global History of the Cold War, Third Edition (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018); Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History (New York: Basic Books, 2019). 48 Andrew Hartman, Education and the Cold War: The Battle for the American School (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 6. 49 Texas Education Agency, “Thirty-Seventh Biennial Report 1950–1951 and 1951–1952,” Texas Education Bulletin no. 537 (1952): 23. For more on these laws, and on the battles over education in Texas during the early 1960s, see Allan Kownslar, The Great Texas Social Studies Textbook War of 1961–1962 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2020). 50 The textbooks with a separate chapter on the Cold War include Anatole Mazour and John Peoples, Men and Nations: A World History (New York:

Modern Problems  165 Harcourt, Brace & World Inc., 1961); Lester Rogers, Fay Adams, and Walker Brown, Story of Nations (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1960). 51 Mazour and Peoples, Men and Nations 1960 Edition, 768. 52 Ibid, 762. 53 R.O. Hughes, The Making of Today’s World (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1952), v. 54 For information on the significance of imperialism more broadly, see Chapter 5. 55 Wallbank and Quillen, Man’s Story, 717. 56 Ibid, 725. 57 Arthur Boak et al., The History of Our World (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961), 754. 58 Boak et al., The History of Our World, 1961, 758. 59 A. Wesley Roehm et al., The Record of Mankind, Second Edition (Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1961), 570. 60 Ibid, 570. 61 Gerald Leinwand, The Pageant of World History (Boston: Allyn and Bacon Inc., 1977), 658. 62 Ibid, 574. 63 William McNeill, The Ecumene: Story of Humanity (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1973), 706. 64 Ibid, 726. 65 Ibid, 727. 66 T. Walter Wallbank et al., History and Life: The World and Its People, Teacher’s Annotated Second Edition (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1984), 714. 67 See Chapter 3 for more on the history of the Essential Elements. 68 Texas Education Agency, State Board of Education Rules for Curriculum: Principles, Standards, and Procedures for Accreditation of School Districts (Austin: Texas Education Agency, 1984), 62. 69 Ibid, 63. 70 Ibid, 145. 71 Anatole Mazour and John Peoples, World History: People and Nations (Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1990), 868. 72 Marvin Perry et al., History of the World (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990), 827. 73 Ibid, ibidem. 74 Steven Jantzen, Larry S. Krieger, and Kenneth Neill, World History: Perspectives on the Past, Texas Teachers’ Annotated Edition (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1990), 755. 75 For an example, see Burton Beers, World History: Patterns of Civilization, Annotated Teacher’s Edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990), 757. 76 For more on this, see Chapter 4. 77 Peter Stearns, Donald Schwartz, and Barry Beyer, World History: Traditions and New Directions, Annotated Teacher’s Edition (Menlo Park, CA: AddisonWesley Publishing Company, 1989), 803. 78 Ibid, 803. 79 Mazour and Peoples, World History 1990 Edition, 802. 80 The adoption periods were only four years apart, and the books changed little between editions, with the exception of enhanced content on the events of September 11, 2001. 81 Roger Beck et al., World History: Patterns of Interaction (Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell Inc., 1999), 911. 82 Ibid, 935.

166  Modern Problems 83 Elisabeth Gaynor Ellis and Anthony Esler, World History: Connections to Today (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999), 885. 84 William Travis Hanes III, World History: Continuity & Change, Texas Annotated Teacher’s Edition (Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1999), 845. 85 Ibid, 845. 86 Texas Education Agency, Chapter 113: Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies, 2010, 16. 87 Ibid, ibidem. 88 I should note here that Texas World History (Orlando: Houghton Mifflin Publishing Company, 2016) largely replicates the material from 2003’s World History: Patterns of Interaction. The organization and often the language is the same. 89 Jackson Spielvogel, World History, Teacher Edition (Bothell, WA: McGrawHill Education, 2016), 821. 90 Spielvogel, World History 2016 Edition, 821. 91 Elizabeth Gaynor Ellis and Anthony Esler, World History, Texas Teacher’s Edition (Boston: Pearson Education, Inc, 2016), 949. 92 Ibid, 921.

Bibliography Alm, Martin. “Europe in American World History Textbooks.” Journal of Transatlantic Studies 12, no. 3 (2014): 237–57. Beck, Roger B., Linda Black, Philip C. Naylor, and Dahia Ibo Shabaka. World History: Patterns of Interaction. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell Inc., 1999. Becker, Carl, and Frederic Duncalf. Story of Civilization. New York: Silver Burdett Company, 1938. Beers, Burton. World History: Patterns of Civilization. Teacher’s Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1983. ———. World History: Patterns of Civilization. Annotated Teacher’s Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990. Bining, Arthur C., Arthur C. Howland, and Richard Shryock. This Our World: A Pageant of World History. New York: Newson & Company, 1947. Boak, Arthur, Preston Slosson, and Howard Anderson. World History, edited by William Langer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947. Boak, Arthur, Preston Slosson, Howard Anderson, and Hall Bartlett. The History of Our World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961. Dunn, Ross. “The Two World Histories.” Social Education 72, no. 5 (2008): 257–63. Ellis, Elisabeth Gaynor, and Anthony Esler. World History: Connections to Today. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999. Ellis, Elizabeth Gaynor, and Anthony Esler. World History. Texas Teacher’s Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc., 2016. Elson, Henry W. Modern Times and the Living Past. New York: American Book Company, 1921. “Eternal Vigilance Is the Price of Liberty (Spurious Quotation).” In The Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia. Charlottesville, Va: Thomas Jefferson Foundation n.d.

Modern Problems  167 Accessed January 5, 2022. https://www.monticello.org/site/research-andcollections/eternal-vigilance-price-liberty-spurious-quotation#footnote1_tp43obf Evans, Ronald W. This Happened in America: Harold Rugg and the Censure of Social Studies. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2007. Ewing, Ethel. Our Widening World. Second Edition. New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1961. Greenan, John T., and J. Madison Gathany. Units in World History: Development of Modern Europe. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1934. Hanes III, William Travis. World History: Continuity & Change. Texas Annotated Teacher’s Edition. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1999. Hartman, Andrew. Education and the Cold War: The Battle for the American School. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Hayes, Carlton, Parker Thomas Moon, and John Wayland. World History. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1935. Hughes, R.O. The Making of Today’s World. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1935. ———. The Making of Today’s World. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1952. Jantzen, Steven L., Larry S. Krieger, and Kenneth Neill. World History: Perspectives on the Past. Texas Teacher’s Annotated Edition. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1990. Judge, Edward, and John W. Langdon. A Hard and Bitter Peace: A Global History of the Cold War. Third Edition. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. Kownslar, Allan O. The Great Texas Social Studies Textbook War of 1961–1962. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2020. Leinwand, Gerald. The Pageant of World History. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1977. Mazour, Anatole G., and John M. Peoples. Men and Nations: A World History. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World Inc., 1961. Mazour, Anatole G. World History: People and Nations. Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1990. ———. The Ecumene: Story of Humanity. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1973. McNeill, William H. “The Changing Shape of World History.” History and Theory 34, no. 2 (1995): 8–26. Pahlow, Edwin W. Man’s Great Adventure: An Introduction to World History. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1932. ———. Man’s Great Adventure, Revised Edition. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1938. Perkins, Clarence. Man’s Advancing Civilization. New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1934. Perry, Marvin, Allan Scholl, Daniel F. Davis, Jeannette G. Harris, and Theodore H. Von Laue. History of the World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990. Ray, Rashawn, and Alexandra Gibbons. “Why Are States Banning Critical Race Theory?” The Brookings Institute, November 2021. https://www.brookings. edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-states-banning-critical-race-theory/ Robinson, James Harvey, Emma Peters Smith, and James Henry Breasted. Our World Today and Yesterday: A History of Modern Civilization. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1924.

168  Modern Problems Roehm, A. Wesley, Morris R. Buske, Hutton Webster, and Edgar B. Wesley. The Record of Mankind. Second Edition. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1961. Rogers, Lester B., Fay Adams, and Walker Brown. Story of Nations. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1960. Smith, Emma Peters, David Saville Muzzey, and Minnie Lloyd. World History: The Struggle for Civilization. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1946. Spielvogel, Jackson, and Jay McTighe. World History. Teacher Edition. Bothell, WA: McGraw-Hill Education, 2016. Stearns, Peter N. Western Civilization in World History. Themes in World History. New York: Routledge, 2003. Stearns, Peter N., Donald R. Schwartz, and Barry K. Beyer. World History: Traditions and New Directions. Annotated Teacher’s Edition. Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1989. Stigler, W.A. Handbook for Curriculum Study. Austin, TX: Texas State Department of Education, 1934. Texas Education Agency. State Board of Education Rules for Curriculum: Principles, Standards, and Procedures For Accreditation of School Districts. Austin, TX: Texas Education Agency, 1984. ———. “Thirty-Seventh Biennial Report 1950–1951 and 1951–1952.” Texas Education Agency Bulletin 537 (1952). Texas Education Code. Chapter 113. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies, Austin, TX: Legislatur of the state of Texas, 2010. Texas State Department of Education. “Social Studies in the Secondary Schools,” Austin, TX: Texas State Department of Education, 1949. Texas World History. Teacher’s Edition. Orlando, FL: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2016. Wallbank, T. Walter, and James Quillen. Man’s Story: World History in Its Geographic Setting. Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1951. Wallbank, T. Walter, Arnold Schrier, Donna Maier, and Patricia Gutierrez-Smith. History and Life: The World and Its People Teacher’s Annotated Edition. Second Edition. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1984. Webster, Hutton. World History. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., Publishers, 1921. Westad, Odd Arne. The Cold War: A World History. New York: Basic Books, 2019. Wrench, Jesse E. The March of Civilization: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern World. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1931.

Conclusion Whither High School World History in Texas?

As this book goes to print, history education is once again at the center of the American culture wars. Responding to the provocative 1619 Project, dozens of Republican state legislatures passed sweeping legislation designed to prohibit Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the teaching of ‘divisive concepts’ in public schools.1 The Texas legislature has been a leader in the anti-CRT movement, prompting multiple opposition letters from the American Historical Association (AHA), which called one piece of Texas legislation “an affront to historical integrity.”2 One of these antiCRT bills, S.B.3, required the Texas Education Agency to complete a review of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for social studies by the end of 2022, much earlier than anticipated.3 In recent years, scholars and activists have also passionately critiqued history education in the United States, but for a very different set of reasons. Calls to decolonize the curriculum, meaning to recognize and redress the ways in which education privileges and supports settler colonialism, have been growing for years.4 In 2015, the #RhodesMustFall movement criticized the imperial legacy of educational institutions and became an international phenomenon from South Africa to the United Kingdom.5 In the summer of 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement inspired international activism focusing on the plight of marginalized peoples. Calls for the decolonization of education grow louder seemingly by the minute. These broader contours of the culture wars are clearly at work within the 2021–2022 TEKS review. In January of 2022, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) released the recommendations of expert reviewers. The document is filled with dissenting opinions and alternative options, highlighting divisions among the reviewers. The panel created rival frameworks for high school World History. Framework 1, supported by a majority of the reviewers, makes the case that the course should “keep the focus on ‘world’ history, and not be as Eurocentric.”6 The proposal recommends a change in chronology so that content coverage would begin around the year 1200 C.E., similar to the approach of the Advanced Placement World History (APWH) course. This framework has the DOI: 10.4324/9781003323785-7

170 Conclusion potential to align the Texas World History course more closely to the recommendations of professional world historians. A faction of the expert reviewers, however, recommended an entirely different course of action. Framework 2, championed especially by controversial expert reviewer Stephen Balch, promotes a resolutely proWestern vision for the World History course.7 The preamble argues that a breakthrough in the human condition started in the West, “proceeding to the development of modern democracy and a culture of affluence and liberty.”8 Though this framework acknowledges contributions from nonWestern societies across time and space, the overwhelming focus is on Europe as the engine of progress over the past 500 years. The Eurocentrism of Framework 2 is not new in the century-long story of the World History course in Texas. What is new is the strident language, and defensive tone, of the preamble. Previous generations of scholars took European superiority for granted, but in 2022 the authors of Framework 2 felt compelled to defend their Eurocentric stance. By March of 2022, TEA released the recommendations of a Work Group composed of teachers and content experts recommending line-byline revisions to the TEKS. The Work Group supported the move to begin content coverage in the year 1200 C.E. because it would allow for more in-depth focus instead of an exhausting sprint through the entire human past. The Work Group’s rationale for the new chronological span of the course indicates their desire for a more robust global perspective. According to the Work Group, 1200 C.E. was an appropriate date since it includes “groups that are sometimes marginalized in history” and “allows for the acknowledgement of the cultural and historical independence of regions before the world was fully interconnected.”9 The Work Group also recommended removing or significantly altering some of the most controversial and politically motivated TEKS approved in 2010 and still in place following the 2018 streamlining process. The group recommended removing references to ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ because, as professional historians and education critics had pointed out for more than a decade, “terrorism is a global issue that is not related to a single region or religion.”10 A sub-element blaming the Arab-Israeli conflict largely on the Arab community was removed and rewritten to “address the creation of Israel” and be “more inclusive of varying points of view.”11 The document created by the Work Group is preliminary only, and subject to re-writes from elected State Board of Education members, who may prefer the alternative direction of Framework 2. The divergent frameworks proposed by the expert reviewers represent the latest debate over the content, substance, and meaning of the World History course in Texas. For over a century, scholars, teachers, and policymakers have struggled to develop a consensus answer to a critical question: What should American high school students know about the world? This book reveals that the World History course in Texas has evolved

Conclusion  171 considerably over the decades into a patchwork reflecting the shifting anxieties and priorities of each successive generation. Progressive educators first shaped the course in the 1920s and 1930s, followed by multicultural advocates in the 1960s and 1970s, then by a reactionary conservative movement that powerfully influenced the course in the 1980s. The conservative vision for the World History course became entrenched in Texas classrooms and has remained so for the past four decades, despite the emergence of the World History Association (WHA) and the APWH course that advocate for a global perspective. But despite the impassioned criticisms of the World History course coming from both the right and left today, Texas students receive a far more inclusive course now than at any point in the course’s history. Contemporary textbooks contain significantly more material on nonWestern peoples and portray them in a more favorable light than in previous generations. This very gradual trend toward a more balanced and even-handed approach to World History could, however, be reversed if Framework 2 becomes the new standard. While the World History course in Texas is demonstrably less exclusionary than in the past, the interpretive frameworks of Texas World History textbooks and curricula have changed less significantly. Explicit Eurocentrism is no longer the norm, but a wide variety of embedded narrative tropes and nebulous terminology continue to treat Europe as the measuring stick by which the entire human past is judged. And though this book examines a single state with its own particularities, the Eurocentric ‘Western Civ Plus’ model, the norm in Texas, remains prevalent in dozens of state standards across the country.12 Conceptually, the central problem that has always bedeviled the World History course continues to be an issue today: Since there is simply too much content to be meaningfully covered, how do you decide what to include or exclude? Though most reasonable people can accept this in principle, cutting anything out of the course inevitably leads to howls of protests for daring to leave out what the protestor deems to be a pivotal topic. In other words, these critics accept that choices to omit material must be made, but not at the expense of their preferred content. A traditional chronological framework privileging Europe has been the  norm in Texas, but this book reveals a history of experimentation over the past century. Some textbooks in the Progressive Era developed problem-oriented materials, and some authors after the Second World War experimented with purely regional approaches. If Framework 1 and the Work Group recommendations are implemented, it would signal an important shift toward the global perspective long advocated by the WHA and, more recently, by the APWH course. This new paradigm would solve the problem of an over-stuffed course by radically reducing the amount of content to be covered. And this content would not simply disappear from the curriculum. An April 2022 document released by the

172 Conclusion Texas State Board of Education recommended providing enhanced coverage of world history in the elementary and middle-school grades.13 Teachers, educators, and policymakers today have at their disposal several innovative interpretive frameworks that have the potential to reenergize the course. David Christian proposes Big History, which utilizes a multidisciplinary and expansive vision of history to explore large-scale change over time.14 Some education experts advocate authentic engagement with world cultures, ensuring that colonial perspectives are no longer privileged. Supporters of global education and multicultural education offer different approaches that foster inclusion and multi-disciplinary thinking.15 Others focus on a thematic approach to teaching World History. Rosalie Metro, for instance, developed a guide centered on a series of ‘21st century issues’ that will seem vibrantly relevant to contemporary students.16 There is a growing movement among educators and scholars to orient secondary-level history courses around the skills of history, rather than on content memorization, a movement that was formalized with the creation of the C3 Framework by the National Council for the Social Studies in 2013.17 While these approaches all have the potential to move the teaching of the World History course forward, the proliferation of interpretive frameworks means in practice a lack of unity around any single organizing principle. There is no consensus on who should be included, what historical themes should serve as focal points, how to properly balance instructional materials to be inclusive, or even the optimal chronology for the course. Though largely united in opposition to Eurocentrism, educators and academics remain divided on how best to teach world history at the K-12 level. Scholars of world history may see the lack of a grand narrative as a strength. From this perspective, a variety of accurate, consistent, and intellectually interesting interpretive frameworks may be a better choice. And there is precedent within Texas’ history for this multivalent approach. A similar strategy prevailed in the 1970s, where the Texas Education Agency acknowledged the impossibility of covering absolutely everything, and empowered local school districts to choose interpretive frameworks that best suited their needs. But in an era dominated by politicized battles over rigid state standards, it is doubtful that a more flexible approach will be palatable to policymakers in charge of overseeing statelevel curricular development in places like Texas. Publishers, fearing a loss of market share, textbook authors, fearing an inability to have their material published, and policymakers, fearing political backlash, are all incentivized to be risk averse. For activists on both the right and the left, the stakes for these debates over education are nothing less than the national identity itself.18 As the chapters in this book demonstrate, nationalism has been a staple feature of the World History course since its inception. Even though their

Conclusion  173 interpretive framework is rife with biases and inaccuracies by scholarly standards, it may well be that proponents of a ‘Western Civ Plus’ model, who highlight concepts like the rise of democracy and capitalism, make a louder and more united case that their version of the World History course better supports American nationalism. For supporters of the new world history championed by the WHA, this raises a significant question: How do you reconcile a scholarship which eschews the nation-state with education systems that justify themselves by claiming to produce useful citizens of the nation? Professional world historians recognize this challenge and have made clear claims about the value of world history for citizenship. The World History For Us All curriculum, affiliated with the UCLA History Department and the National Center for History in the Schools, provides an important example. The curriculum claims that learning world history helps students to better understand “what it means to be human,” informs them about the significant global connections that knit the global community together, and contributes to cultural literacy.19 To date, this message does not seem to have made significant headway among policymakers, especially those on the right. The continued efforts by the WHA to reach out to secondary teachers across the country are laudable, yet curricular change needs to involve more than just scholars and educators. Professionals in the field must articulate a coherent, easily digestible, and tangible narrative justifying World History’s place in the curriculum at the grassroots level. Without achieving a far greater amount of public and political buy-in, it will be challenging for the new paradigms espoused by professional world historians to make additional headway.20 Conceptual and political issues are likely to remain for the foreseeable future, but practical steps can be taken in the meantime to reduce some of the remaining distortions and biases in secondary World History courses. Textbook authors, textbook approval committees, and teachers need to be aware of the interpretive frameworks undergirding instructional materials. This would involve, especially, questioning the universality of European history. Periodization and chapter organization in instructional materials, for instance, should not simply reflect the European chronology of ancient, medieval, and modern.21 Additionally, instructional materials must more carefully define their conceptual terminology and use terms with a far greater level of precision than at present. My analysis has identified the terms modernization and development as especially problematic, functioning interchangeably as stand-ins for Western.22 Inter­ pretive frameworks need to be explicitly stated in textbook prefaces or introductions and applied consistently across eras and regions. Though research continues to highlight the enduring power of the classroom history textbook, the proliferation of high-quality, freely available resources online can significantly enhance any World History classroom.23

174 Conclusion To conclude, the toxic politics of the culture wars will in all likelihood continue infecting the course through the current TEKS revision cycle and into the foreseeable future. But it is important to remember that the vibrant work of educators and scholars will also shape the patchwork of World History in Texas. The course need not remain weighed down by the enormity of the human past, nor by the expectations placed upon it by critics with divergent visions for what it should be. High school World History in Texas will never reach perfection and is unlikely to satisfy everyone, but the course has improved over time and can continue to do so in the future.

Notes 1 Nicole Hannah-Jones, Mary Elliott, Jazmine Hughes, Jake Silverstein, “The 1619 Project,” New York Times Magazine, August 18, 2019. Official Website: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-americaslavery.html See “Joint Statement on Legislative Efforts to Restrict Education about Racism in American History.” American Historical Association, Accessed January 13, 2022. https://www.historians.org/divisive-conceptsstatement For a detailed overview of this type of legislation, see Rashawn Ray and Alexandra Gibbons, “Why Are States Banning Critical Race Theory?” The Brookings Institute, November 2021. Accessed January 13, 2022. https:// www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-states-banning-criticalrace-theory/ 2 Jacqueline Jones and James Grossman, “AHA Sends Letter Opposing Proposed Legislation on History Education in Texas,” American Historical Association, August 2021. Accessed January 13, 2022. https://www.historians. org/news-and-advocacy/aha-advocacy/aha-letter-opposing-proposed-legislationon-history-education-in-texas-(august-2021); See also Jacqueline Jones and James Grossman, “AHA Issues Letter Objecting to Texas Bill,” American Historical Association, May 2021. Accessed January 13, 2022. https://www. historians.org/news-and-advocacy/aha-advocacy/aha-letter-objecting-totexas-bill-(may-2021). For more analyses of the Texas legislation, see: See Emily Donaldson, “Will Texas Repeat a McCarthy-like investigation into what students read in schools?” The Dallas Morning News, 11/8/2021. Accessed January 18, 2022; Christopher Hooks, “Critical Race Fury: The School Board Wars Are Getting Nasty in Texas,” Texas Monthly, November 2021. https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/critical-race-fury-theschool-board-wars-are-getting-nasty-in-texas/. Accessed January 18, 2022. 3 S.B.3: An act relating to civics training programs for certain public school social studies teachers and principals, parental access to certain learning management systems, and certain curriculum in public schools, including certain instructional requirements and prohibitions. 87th Legislature of Texas, 2nd Called Session. Accessed April 15, 2022. https://lrl.texas.gov/legis/billSearch/ JournalsEtc.cfm?legSession=87-2&billtypeDetail=SB&billNumberDetail=3 &billSuffixDetail= ; See also: Texas Education Agency, “2021–2022 Social Studies TEKS Review,” Accessed January 13, 2022. https://tea.texas.gov/ academics/curriculum-standards/teks-review/2021-2022-social-studies-teksreview 4 See, for instance, Eve Tuck and Wayne Yang, “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1, no. 1 (2012):

Conclusion  175 1–40. For an overview of what decolonizing the curriculum means in various international contexts, see Riyad Shahjahan, Annabelle Estera, Kristen Surla,  and Kirsten Edwards, “‘Decolonizing’ Curriculum and Pedagogy: A  Comparative Review Across Disciplines and Global Higher Education Contexts,” Review of Education Research 20 (2022): 1–41. 5 See Roseann Chantiluke, Brian Kwoba, and Athinangamso Nkopo, Rhodes Must Fall: The Struggle to Decolonise the Racist Heart of Empire (London: Zed Books, 2018). 6 Texas Education Agency, “Social Studies Content Advisors Consensus Recommendations,” January 14, 2022, 9. https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/ files/social-studies-content-advisors-consensus-recommendations.pdf 7 The Texas Freedom Network called for Balch’s removal from the curriculum panel due in part to his promotion of fraudulent claims regarding the American presidential election of 2020. Val Benavidez, “TFN President Calls for Removal of Conspiracy Theorist from Key Texas Curriculum Panel,” Texas Freedom Network, January 24, 2022. https://tfn.org/tfn-presidentcalls-for-removal-of-conspiracy-theorist-from-key-texas-curriculum-panel/ 8 Stephen Balch and Steve Mintz, Proposed Revisions to High School Courses (Texas Education Agency, January 14, 2022), 20. https://tea.texas.gov/sites/ default/files/recommendation-5-hs-framework-2-proposed-revisions-to-highschool-courses.pdf 9 State Board of Education TEKS Review Work Group for World History Studies, Social Studies TEKS Review Work Group C for World History Studies (Texas Education Agency, March 2022). https://tea.texas.gov/sites/ default/files/world-history-studies-teks-recommendations-working-doc.pdf 10 State Board of Education TEKS Review Work Group for World History Studies, “Social Studies TEKS Review Work Group C for World History Studies,” 13. 11 State Board of Education TEKS Review Work Group for World History Studies, “Social Studies TEKS Review Work Group C for World History Studies,” 12. 12 The most recent national analysis, published in 2005, suggests that 28 states use a ‘Western Civ Plus’ model for World History. This may have changed in the years since. Bob Bain and Tamara Shreiner, “Issues and Options in Creating a National Assessment in World History,” The History Teacher 38, no. 2 (2005): 241–271. 13 Texas State Board of Education, “Kindergarten-Grade 8 Social Studies Standards to Focus on Fundamentals,” Texas Education Agency Website. Accessed April, 23, 2022. https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/3-6-frameworkoverview-annotated-040622.pdf 14 David Christian, Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011). For a critique of Big History, see Ian Hesketh, “What Big History Misses,” Aeon, December 16, 2021. https://aeon. co/essays/we-should-be-wary-about-what-big-history-overlooks-in-its-myth 15 William Gaudelli, for instance, discusses the best practices in global education, which he sees as a more integrated approach than world history. World Class: Teaching and Learning in Global Times (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Associates, 2003). For an important overview of multicultural education, see  Catherine Cornbleth and Dexter Waugh, The Great Speckled Bird: Multicultural Politics and Education Policymaking (New York: Routledge, 1995). Christine Sleeter and Miguel Zavala recently advocated for transformative ethnic studies in Transformative Ethnic Studies in Schools: Curriculum Pedagogy & Research (New York: Teachers College Press, 2020).

176 Conclusion 16 Rosalie Metro, Teaching World History Thematically: Essential Questions and Document-Based Lessons to Connect Past and Present (New York: Teachers College Press, 2020). 17 National Council for the Social Studies, College, Career & Civic Life: C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards (Silver Spring, MD: National Council of the Social Studies, 2013). 18 Cody Ewert argues that the progressive educators of the late 19th and early 20th century made nationalism a key part of their agenda, the ramifications of which we still see today. Cody Ewert, Making Schools American: Nationalism and the Origin of Modern Educational Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022). 19 “Why we learn world history,” World History for Us All Curriculum, UCLA Department of History and the National Center for History in the Schools, Accessed March 31, 2022. https://whfua.history.ucla.edu/shared/thinking. php 20 Prominent world history scholar and advocate Ross Dunn is clearly aware of this tension, and wrote about it in his article “The Two World Histories,” Social Education 72, no. 5 (2008): 257–263. 21 Chapter 3 demonstrates that the 2010 TEKS curriculum embraced a more global chronology, an important step in reducing overall Eurocentrism. 22 See also Tadashi Dozono, “The Passive Voice of White Supremacy: Tracing Epistemic and Discursive Violence in World History Curriculum,” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 42, no. 1 (2020): 1–26. 23 For some especially helpful examples of online resources providing lesson plans, see the OER Project https://www.oerproject.com/World-History; The Big History Project, https://www.bighistoryproject.com/home; The World History for Us All curriculum developed by the UCLA History Department, https://whfua.history.ucla.edu/; C3teachers.org contains specific lesson plans appropriate for an inquiry-based analysis modeled on the C3 Framework. https://c3teachers.org/inquiries/; World History Commons, an open educational resource, also contains a significant amount of peer-reviewed content. https://worldhistorycommons.org/. Academic journals such as World History Connected or the World History Bulletin also contain useful guides for teachers. Popular media such as the YouTube series “Crash Course World History” may also provide world history content that can liven up classroom materials. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBDA2E52FB1EF80C9

Bibliography American Historical Association. “Joint Statement on Legislative Efforts to Restrict Education About Racism in American History,” June 2021. https:// www.historians.org/divisive-concepts-statement An Act Relating to Civics Training Programs for Certain Public School Social Studies Teachers and Principals, Parental Access to Certain Learning Manage­ ment Systems, and Certain Curriculum in Public Schools, Including Certain Instructional Requirements and Prohibitions. Pub. L. No. S.B.3, Chapter 21, Subchapter J Education (2021). https://capitol.texas.gov/Search/DocViewer. aspx?ID=872SB000033B&QueryText=%22SB+3%22&DocType=B Bain, Robert B., and Tamara L. Shreiner. “Issues and Options in Creating a National Assessment in World History.” The History Teacher 38, no. 2 (2005): 241–71.

Conclusion  177 Benavidez, Val. “TFN President Calls for Removal of Conspiracy Theorist from Key Texas Curriculum Panel.” Texas Freedom Network Website. January 24, 2022. https://tfn.org/tfn-president-calls-for-removal-of-conspiracy-theorist-fromkey-texas-curriculum-panel/ C3 Teachers Inquiries, 2022. https://c3teachers.org/inquiries/ Chantiluke, Roseann, Brian Kwoba, and Athinangamso Nkopo, eds. Rhodes Must Fall: The Struggle to Decolonise the Racist Heart of Empire. London: Zed Books, 2018. Christian, David. Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. College, Career & Civic Life: C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards. “National Council for the Social Studies,” 2013. https://www.socialstudies.org/ system/files/2022/c3-framework-for-social-studies-rev0617.2.pdf Cornbleth, Catherine, and Dexter Waugh. The Great Speckled Bird: Multicultural Politics and Education Policymaking. New York: Routledge, 1995. Donaldson, Emily. “Will Texas Repeat a McCarthy-like Investigation into What Students Read in Schools?” The Dallas Morning News, November 8, 2021, sec. Education. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2021/11/08/will-texasrepeat-a-mccarthy-like-investigation-into-what-students-read-in-schools/ Dozono, Tadashi. “The Passive Voice of White Supremacy: Tracing Epistemic and Discursive Violence in World History Curriculum.” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 42, no. 1 (2020): 1–26. Dunn, Ross. “The Two World Histories.” Social Education 72, no. 5 (2008): 257–63. Ewert, Cody. Making Schools American: Nationalism and the Origin of Modern Educational Politics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022. Gaudelli, William. World Class: Teaching and Learning in Global Times. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Associates, 2003. Hannah-Jones, Nicole, Mary Elliott, Jazmine Hughes, and Jake Silverstein. “The 1619 Project.” New York Times Magazine, August 19, 2019. https://www. nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html Hesketh, Ian. “What Big History Misses.” Aeon, December 16, 2021. https:// aeon.co/essays/we-should-be-wary-about-what-big-history-overlooks-in-itsmyth Hooks, Christopher. “Critical Race Fury: The School Board Wars Are Getting Nasty in Texas.” Texas Monthly, November 2021, sec. Politics & Policy. https:// www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/critical-race-fury-the-school-board-wars-aregetting-nasty-in-texas/ Jones, Jacqueline, and James Grossman. “AHA Issues Letter Objecting to Texas Bill.” The American Historical Association, May 2021. https://www.historians. org/news-and-advocacy/aha-advocacy/aha-letter-objecting-to-texas-bill-(may2021). Jones, Jacqueline. “AHA Sends Letter Opposing Proposed Legislation on History Education in Texas.” The American Historical Association, August 2021. https://www.historians.org/news-and-advocacy/aha-advocacy/aha-letter-opposingproposed-legislation-on-history-education-in-texas-(august-2021) McNeill, William H. “What We Mean By The West.” Orbis 41, no. 4 (1997): 513–24.

178 Conclusion Metro, Rosalie. Teaching World History Thematically: Essential Questions and Document-Based Lessons to Connect Past and Present. New York: Teachers College Press, 2020. Mintz, Steve, and Stephen Balch. Proposed Revisions to High School Courses. Texas Education Agency, 2022. https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/ recommendation-5-hs-framework-2-proposed-revisions-to-high-school-courses. pdf Public History Initiative, National Center for History in the Schools, UCLA. “World History for Us All.” 2007 Accessed January 15, 2022. https://whfua. history.ucla.edu/ Roy Rosenzwieg Center for History and New Media. “World History Commons.” World History Commons, December 16, 2021. https://worldhistorycommons. org/ Shahjahan, Riyad A., Annabelle L. Estera, Kristen L. Surla, and Kirsten T. Edwards. “‘Decolonizing’ Curriculum and Pedagogy: A Comparative Review Across Disciplines and Global Higher Education Contexts.” Review of Education Research, 2022, 1–41. Sleeter, Christine E., and Miguel Zavala. Transformative Ethnic Studies in Schools: Curriculum Pedagogy & Research. New York: Teachers College Press, 2020. State Board of Education TEKS Review Work Group for World History Studies. Social Studies TEKS Review Work Group C Working Document. Texas Education Agency, March 2022. https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/worldhistory-studies-teks-recommendations-working-doc.pdf Texas Education Agency. “2021–2022 Social Studies TEKS Review.” n.d. Accessed January 13, 2022. https://tea.texas.gov/academics/curriculum-standards/teksreview/2021-2022-social-studies-teks-review ———. “Social Studies Content Advisors Consensus Recommendations,” January 14, 2022. https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/social-studies-content-advisorsconsensus-recommendations.pdf Texas State Board of Education. “Kindergarten-Grade 8 Social Studies Standards to Focus on Fundamentals.” Texas Education Agency Website, April 2022. https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/3-6-framework-overview-annotated-040622. pdf The OER Project. “The OER Project: Big History,” 2022. https://www.oerproject. com/Big-History The OER Project: World History. 2022. https://www.oerproject.com/World-History Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1, no. 1 (2012): 1–40.

Appendix A Texas World History Textbooks by Adoption Period

The textbooks utilized for this study were approved or recommended for high school World History in the state of Texas. Book recommendations began in 1925 before Texas formally adopted textbooks at the high school level. Since the 1930s, the state has followed an adoption process recommending between three and five books. The adoption period is sup­ posed to be for six years but has often been extended for longer periods of time. The full adoption list is published each year by the Texas Educa­ tion Agency, and digitized versions of the adoption lists are collected by the University of Texas at Austin Historical Textbook Collection.1 This list includes all textbooks approved in Texas with a few important exceptions. Separate editions of textbooks were only included if they fell in different adoption periods (which has happened multiple times), and the study does not include electronic books or books specifically approved for the Advanced Placement World History course (which were only explicitly approved in one adoption period).

1925–1930 Elson, Henry W. Modern Times and the Living Past. New York: American Book Company, 1921. Robinson, James Harvey, Emma Peters Smith, and James Henry Breasted. Our World Today and Yesterday: A History of Modern Civilization. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1924. Webster, Hutton. World History. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., Publishers, 1921.

Notes for this adoption period: These textbooks were not officially approved by the state of Texas in a formal adoption procedure. They were, however, recommended in a 1925 curricular document. State Department of Education, Course of Study: Texas High Schools, 1925.

1930–1935 Elson, Henry W. Modern Times and the Living Past. New York: American Book Company, 1921.

180  Appendix A Robinson, James Harvey, Emma P. Smith, and James Henry Breasted. Our World Today and Yesterday: A History of Modern Civilization. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1924. J. Salwyn Schapiro and Richard Morris, Civilization in Europe: Part I. Ancient and Medieval Times. Part II. Modern Times in Europe. Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press, 1931.

Notes for this adoption period: Publication dates were not provided on the official adoption documents. For this reason two out of three books bear the same date as the 1925 textbooks. Modern Times and the Living Past and Our World Today and Yesterday were approved for use in class­ rooms from 1930-1939.

1935–1939 Elson, Henry W. Modern Times and the Living Past. New York: American Book Company, 1921. Greenan, John T., and J. Madison Gathany. Units in World History: Development of Modern Europe. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1934. Pahlow, Edwin W. Man’s Great Adventure: An Introduction to World History. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1932. Perkins, Clarence. Man’s Advancing Civilization. New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1934. Wrench, Jesse E. The March of Civilization: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern World. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1931.

1939–1947 Becker, Carl, and Frederic Duncalf. Story of Civilization. New York: Silver Burdett Company, 1938. Hayes, Carlton, Parker Thomas Moon, and John Wayland. World History. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1935. Heckel, Albert Kerr, and James G. Sigman. On the Road to Civilization. Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1937. Hughes, R.O. The Making of Today’s World. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1935. ———. The Making of Today’s World. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1947. Pahlow, Edwin W. Man’s Great Adventure. Revised Edition. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1938.

Notes for this adoption period: a) This is the first time that the Texas adoption list officially listed the course as World History rather than General History. In curricular documents the title was clearly World History beginning in the 1920s, but this was not reflected in the adoption lists until the major curriculum revision of 1938. Texas State Department of Education, Bulletin No. 392, Vol. XIV, No. 12, November, 1938.

Appendix A  181 b) The 1944 edition of R.O. Hughes’ The Making of Today’s World was officially re-adopted in 1945. However, I was unable to locate that specific edition, and used the 1946 copyrighted edition re-issued in 1947 for this study.

1948–1954 Bining, Arthur C., Arthur C. Howland, and Richard Shryock. This Our World: A Pageant of World History. New York: Newson & Company, 1947. Boak, Arthur, Preston Slosson, and Howard Anderson. World History. Edited by William Langer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947. Lane, Frederic, Eric Goldman, and Erling Hunt. The World’s History. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1947. Rogers, Lester, Fay Adams, and Walker Brown. Story of Nations. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1947. Smith, Emma Peters, David Saville Muzzey, and Minnie Lloyd. World History: The Struggle for Civilization. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1946.

1954–1962 Habberton, William, and Lawrence Roth. Man’s Achievement Through the Ages. Chicago: Laidlaw Brothers, 1952. Hughes, R.O. The Making of Today’s World. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1952. Lane, Frederic C., Eric F. Goldman, and Erling M. Hunt. The World’s History. Revised Edition. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1954. Smith, Emma Peters, David Saville Muzzey, and Minnie Lloyd. World History: The Struggle for Civilization. Revised. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1952. Wallbank, W. Walter, and James Quillen. Man’s Story: World History in Its Geographic Setting. Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1951.

1962–1971 Boak, Arthur, Preston Slosson, Howard Anderson, and Hall Bartlett. The History of Our World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961. Ewing, Ethel. Our Widening World. Second Edition. New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1961. Mazour, Anatole G., and John M. Peoples. Men and Nations: A World History. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World Inc., 1961. Roehm, A. Wesley, Morris R. Buske, Hutton Webster, and Edgar B. Wesley. The Record of Mankind. Second Edition. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1961. Rogers, Lester B., Fay Adams, and Walker Brown. Story of Nations. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1960.

1971–1977 Good, John M., and Richard B. Ford. The Shaping of Western Society: Tradition and Change in Four Societies: An Inquiry Approach. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1971.

182  Appendix A Holt, Sol, and John R. O’Connor. Exploring World History. New York: Globe Book Company, 1969. Stavrianos, Leften, Loretta Kreider Andrews, John R. McLane, Frank Safford, and James E. Sheridan. A Global History of Man. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1970. Wallbank, T. Walter, and Arnold Schrier. Living World History. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1969. Welty, Paul. Man’s Cultural Heritage: A World History. Revised Edition. Philadelphia: J.P. Lippincott Company, 1969.

1977–1983 Kownslar, Allan O., and Terry L. Smart. People and Our World: A Study of World History. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Publishers, 1977. Leinwand, Gerald. The Pageant of World History. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1977. Mazour, Anatole G., and John M. Peoples. Men and Nations: A World History. Third Edition. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. McNeill, William H. The Ecumene: Story of Humanity. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1973. Welty, Paul Thomas. The Human Expression: A History of Peoples and Their Cultures. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1977.

1984–1990 Beers, Burton. World History: Patterns of Civilization. Teacher’s Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1983. Kownslar, Allan O., and Terry L. Smart. People and Our World: A Study of World History. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Publishers, 1984. Mazour, Anatole G., John M. Peoples, and Theodore K. Rabb. People and Nations: A World History. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1983. Reich, Jerome, Edward Biller, and Mark Krug. World History: A Basic Approach. San Diego: Coronado Publishers, 1984. Wallbank, T. Walter, Arnold Schrier, Donna Maier, and Patricia Gutierrez-Smith. History and Life: The World and Its People Teacher’s Annotated Edition. Second Edition. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1984.

1990–1999 Beers, Burton. World History: Patterns of Civilization. Annotated Teacher’s Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990. Dunn, Ross, Dorothy Abrahamse, Edward Farmer, James Garvey, Denny Schillings, and David Victor. Links Across Time and Place: A World History. Evanston, IL: McDougal, LIttell & Company, 1990. Leinwand, Gerald. The Pageant of World History. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall Inc., 1990. Jantzen, Steven L., Larry S. Krieger, and Kenneth Neill. World History: Perspectives on the Past. Texas Teacher’s Annotated Edition. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1990.

Appendix A  183 Mazour, Anatole G., and John M. Peoples. World History: People and Nations. Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1990. Perry, Marvin, Allan Scholl, Daniel F. Davis, Jeannette G. Harris, and Theodore H. Von Laue. History of the World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990. Stearns, Peter N., Donald R. Schwartz, and Barry K. Beyer. World History: Traditions and New Directions. Annotated Teacher’s Edition. Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley Publihsing Company, 1989. Wallbank, T. Walter, Arnold Schrier, Donna Maier, Patricia Gutierrez-Smith, and Philip A. Roden. History and Life. Fourth Edition. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1990.

1999–2003 Beck, Roger B., Linda Black, Philip C. Naylor, and Dahia Ibo Shabaka. World History: Patterns of Interaction. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell Inc., 1999. Farah, Mounir A., and Andrea Berens Karls. World History: The Human Experience. Texas Edition. New York: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 1999. Ellis, Elisabeth Gaynor, and Anthony Esler. World History: Connections to Today. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999. Hanes III, William Travis. World History: Continuity & Change. Texas Annotated Teacher’s Edition. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1999. Spielvogel, Jackson J. World History: The Human Odyssey. Texas Teacher’s Edition. Cincinnati, OH: West Educational Publishing, 1999. Suter, Joanne. Fearon’s World History. Second Edition. Paramus, NJ: Globe Fearon Educational Publisher, 1994.

Notes for this adoption period: Texas approved their first electronic text­ book in World History created by WorldView Systems. Also, some books were approved with different chronological periods, especially books that emphasized only the Modern Era. For consistency’s sake, this study omitted both of these types of sources. Instead, the study focused on physical textbooks that covered all of human history, which has been the norm for the World History course throughout its existence.

2003–2016 Beck, Roger C., Linda Black, Larry S. Krieger, and Dahia Ibo Shabaka. World History: Patterns of Interaction. Texas Edition. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, 2003. Holt World History: The Human Journey. Texas Teacher’s Edition. Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2003. Ellis, Elisabeth Gaynor, and Anthony Esler. World History: Connections to Today. Texas Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003. Spielvogel, Jackson J. Glencoe World History. Texas Edition. New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 2003.

Notes for this adoption period: This adoption period coincided with the creation of the Advanced Placement World History (APWH) course.

184  Appendix A The state approved several textbooks specifically for the APWH course, a practice that it did not repeat in the following adoption period. Since the APWH books were specifically geared towards a national AP curricu­ lum, and since this is the one and only time the state of Texas approved separate books for that course, they are not included in this study.

2016–2022/23 Ellis, Elizabeth Gaynor, and Anthony Esler. World History. Texas Teacher’s Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc., 2016. Spielvogel, Jackson, and Jay McTighe. World History. Teacher Edition. Bothell, WA: McGraw-Hill Education, 2016. Texas World History. Teacher’s Edition. Orlando, FL: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2016.

Note 1 “Browsing Texas Adopted Textbook List by Title,” University of Texas at Austin Libraries. Accessed July 24, 2020. https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/ handle/2152/19095/browse?type=title

Appendix B Officially Approved Curricula in Texas

Bralley, F.M. and T.H. Shelby. Course of Study for the Public Schools. The Texas State Department of Education Bulletin. No. 18, September 1912. Blanton, Annie Webb and R.L. Ragsdale, Texas High Schools: History and the Social Sciences. The Texas Department of Education Bulletin No. 124, 1920. Course of Study: Texas High Schools. Texas State Department of Education Bulletin No. 196, 1925. Division of Curriculum Development. Framework for the Social Studies: Kindergarten-Grade 12. Austin: Texas Education Agency, 1980. Doughty, W.F. Manual and Course of Study for the Public Schools of Texas. The Texas State Department of Education Bulletin No. 46, 1915. Henderson, Katherine Bradford. The Teaching of History and Other Social Subjects. State Department of Education Bulletin No. 308, 1932. Marrs, S.M.N., Texas High Schools: The Teaching of History and Other Social Subjects. State Department of Education Bulletin No. 260, 1929. Principles and Standards for Accrediting Elementary and Secondary Schools and Descriptions of Approved Courses Grades 7–12. Texas Education Agency Bulletin No. 615, 1961. State Board of Education Rules for Curriculum: Principles, Standards, and Procedures for Accreditation of School Districts. Austin: Texas Education Agency, 1984. Social Studies Framework. Kindergarten-Grade 12. Austin: Texas Education Agency, 1986. Social Studies in the Secondary Schools, Texas State Department of Education Bulletin No. 503, 1949. Stigler, W.A. Handbook for Curriculum Study. State Department of Education Bulletin No. 336, 1934. Stigler, W.A. Teaching Social Studies in Junior and Senior High Schools of Texas. Bulletin: State Department of Education No. 392, 1938. Texas Education Agency. Framework for the Social Studies: Grades K-12. Austin: Texas Education Agency, 1970. Texas Education Agency. Chapter 113. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies. Austin: Texas Education Agency, 1998. Texas Education Agency. Texas Social Studies Framework: Kindergarten-Grade 12. Austin: Texas Education Agency, 1999.

186  Appendix B Texas Education Agency. Chapter 113: Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies. Austin: Texas Education Agency, 2010. Accessed June 4, 2020. http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter113/ch113c.html#113.42 Texas Education Agency. Chapter 113. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies. Austin: Texas Education Agency, 2018. Accessed June 3, 2020. https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/Ch%20113%20Sub%20C%20High%20 School_clean.pdf Texas Education Agency. World History Studies: Crosswalk from 2010 TEKS to 2018 Streamlined TEKS. Austin: Texas Education Agency, 2019. Accessed June 3, 2020. https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/World%20History%20Crosswalk. pdf Texas High Schools: Course of Study. State of Texas Department of Education, 1922. Title 19, Chapter 75, Subchapter D, Essential Elements Grade Nine-Twelve. Texas Education Agency, 1991.

Appendix C Textbook Content by the Numbers

Appendix C contains the results of a textbook content analysis examining the number of pages dedicated to Western, non-Western, and global history within three broad chronological periods. This information formed an important part of the data in Chapters 2 and 3, while subsequent chapters focused more on textual analysis. This project builds upon the work of Michael Marino, and my primary contribution to the methodology was to analyze World History textbooks over a large timeframe rather than a set of texts published near the same time.1 This did present some conceptual difficulties, and a few points of clarification are necessary to interpret this data. First, defining terms for the content analysis proved a challenge since the language and chronological periods thought to be important in World History have changed over time. The very terms Western or non-Western do not have fixed, stable meanings.2 In my analysis, the term ‘Western’ applies to Europe and North America, but also to the Near East and parts of North Africa (especially Egypt) in the ancient world. This coincides with the widespread idea that Western culture started in the ancient Fertile Crescent, moved to the Greeks and Romans, to Europe in the Middle Ages, and remained in Western Europe and North America during the modern era. Non-Western applies primarily to Asia, South and Central America, Africa, and the Middle East. This often led to results that are objectively strange: Mesopotamia, for example, counted as Western in the ancient world but as non-Western in the modern world. Similarly, North America counted as non-Western before 1500, but Western afterward. Oddities like these are reflective of the inconsistency of the very notions of Western or non-Western as categories by which we can define and explain human existence. Secondly, since the 1980s, professional world historians have argued that World History should move beyond simply a ‘West and the Rest’ approach and embrace a ‘humanocentric’ history emphasizing global interaction.3 To incorporate this idea, I classified as global any textbook content that covered two or more geographical or cultural regions interacting in some meaningful economic, political, social, or cultural way.

188  Appendix C If a textbook organized material to emphasize a shared historical event with ramifications encompassing multiple geographical or cultural regions, an event such as the Black Death or the Great Depression, it would also be classified as global. Upon reading such content, professional world historians may not agree that it is truly global, but this definition allows for a meaningful understanding of textbook content emphasizing exchanges and interactions between global cultures rather than a purely regional focus. The most difficult content area to classify was 19th-century imperialism, which involved the interaction of Western and non-Western peoples. From the 1920s–1950s, content on imperialism was one of the only areas that described non-Western content whatsoever. Even though this information often focused on European motivations and intentions, I made the decision to classify chapters or units on 19th-century imperialism as non-Western. Another wrinkle was that several textbooks included content on an “Age of Exploration,” that described European imperialism in the 1500s–1700s. After much consideration, I decided to classify this content as Western since in the vast majority of textbooks the content focused nearly exclusively on European actions, or the creation of Western colonies that focused only infrequently on non-Western indigenous peoples. A similar challenge was how to classify Russian history. Ultimately, I made the decision to count Russia as Western, though several textbooks, especially during the Cold War, argued that it was in its own category as not-quite Western and not-quite non-Western. As explained in Chapter 2, several Texas World History textbooks over the decades were organized along an explicitly regional basis, and do not have a traditional chronological focus. These textbooks are included in overall counts, but not in any data involving a consideration of the three broad chronological periods. Importantly, the page count analysis included content chapters, not ancillary materials. This means that glossaries and indexes, which were not standard across the decades, are not included in the total page number counts. In many textbooks, there are pages that are unclassifiable as Western, non-Western, or global content. Therefore, in some cases, the total percentages will not add up to 100%. Finally, some textbooks were included in multiple adoption periods but were only included in this analysis if they were new editions. In the 1920s and 1930s, the specific publication date was not provided by the state of Texas, and in those cases, textbooks close to their adoption date were included if possible (Tables A.1–A.5).

Appendix C  189 Table A.1  Global, non-Western, Western page count by adoption period Adoption period

Number of textbooks included

1925–1930 3 1930–1935 1 1935–1939 5 1939–1947 5 1948–1954 6 1954–1962 4 1962–1971 5 1971–1977 5 1977–1983 5 1984–1990 5 1990–1999 8 1999–2003 6 2003–2016 4 2016–2023 3 Grand Total 65

Average total page count per textbook

Average total page count of global content

Average total page count of non-Western content

Average total page count of Western content

694.0 733.0 797.8 822.4 725.5 750.8 734.6 696.2 758.6 733.4 817.6 913.2 976.5 983.7 796.4

2.7 0.0 7.6 9.2 17.3 33.8 27.4 35.0 66.8 20.0 95.1 116.7 107.8 279.3 58.6

35.0 61.0 43.0 65.2 87.3 97.3 171.4 266.4 251.6 217.0 225.4 295.7 340.8 217.7 180.7

637.3 665.0 720.0 727.6 603.3 584.0 519.0 358.2 400.0 450.0 436.9 438.5 453.0 401.3 516.1

Average page count dedicated to chronological eras by adoption Table A.2   period Adoption period

Average page count of pre-1500 content

Average page count of 1500–1945 content

Average page count of 1945–present content

1925–1930 1930–1935 1935–1939 1939–1947 1948–1954 1954–1962 1962–1971 1971–1977 1977–1983 1984–1990 1990–1999 1999–2003 2003–2016 2016–2023 Grand Total

233.3 145.0 339.0 340.6 242.2 252.3 212.0 238.0 317.7 311.0 331.3 350.2 364.0 394.0 303.6

460.3 588.0 458.6 489.6 462.3 453.0 471.8 381.0 351.0 351.7 356.1 416.0 460.3 449.7 431.4

0.0 0.0 0.0 2.2 23.3 45.0 48.5 69.5 84.3 117.7 123.3 145.0 150.5 138.7 72.7

Adoption period 1925–1930

Pre-1500 Pre-1500 Pre-1500 1500–1945 1500–1945 global non-Western Western global non-Western content content content content content 0%

2%

90%

1%

6%

1500–1945 1945–present 1945–present 1945–present Western global non-Western Western content content content content 93%

-

-

-

1930–1935

0%

4%

91%

0%

9%

91%

-

-

-

1935–1939

0%

2%

91%

2%

8%

90%

-

-

-

1939–1947

0%

4%

87%

1%

10%

88%

-

-

-

1948–1954

1%

7%

84%

1%

14%

86%

-

-

-

1954–1962

3%

14%

69%

0%

12%

88%

61%

17%

22%

1962–1971

0%

7%

82%

0%

18%

82%

49%

19%

34%

1971–1977

0%

24%

65%

0%

12%

86%

35%

35%

28%

1977–1983 12%

32%

47%

12%

18%

67%

43%

30%

26%

1984–1990

29%

59%

0%

18%

81%

14%

44%

33%

0%

1990–1999 11%

31%

47%

8%

18%

70%

25%

46%

26%

1999–2003 11%

37%

42%

10%

20%

65%

26%

52%

19%

2003–2016

7%

39%

43%

10%

27%

58%

28%

46%

22%

2016–2023 10%

38%

38%

21%

16%

57%

100%

0%

0%

190  Appendix C

Table A.3  Average percentage of content dedicated to global, non-Western, and Western content by chronological era (Pre-1500, 1500–1945, 1945–present)

Table A.4  Chronological era page count data by textbook Total Pre-1500 Pre-1500 Pre-1500 Pre-1500 1500– 1500– total global nonWestern 1945 1945 Western total global

1500– 1500– 1945– 1945– 1945 1945 Present present nonWestern total global Western

1945– 1945– Present present nonWestern Western

Title

Adoption period

1921

Modern Times and the Living Past

1925–1930 727

316

0

5

290

410

0

9

401

0

0

0

0

1921

World History

1925–1930 730

239

0

7

203

491

8

49

434

0

0

0

0

1924

Our World Today and Yesterday: A History of Modern Civilization

1925–1930 625

145

0

3

136

480

0

32

448

0

0

0

0

1931

Civilization in Europe: Part I. Ancient and Medieval Times. Part II. Modern Times in Europe

1930–1935 733

145

0

6

132

588

0

55

533

0

0

0

0

1931

The March of Civilization: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern World

1935–1939 825

354

0

15

311

471

17

34

420

0

0

0

0

1932

Man’s Great Adventure: An Introduction to World History

1935–1939 854

487

0

4

429

367

21

15

331

0

0

0

0

1934

Man’s Advancing Civilization

1935–1939 835

339

0

6

321

496

0

21

475

0

0

0

0

1934

Units in World History: Development of Modern Europe

1935–1939 668

210

0

4

196

458

0

35

423

0

0

0

0

(Continued)

Appendix C  191

Date of publication

Date of publication

Title

Adoption period

Total Pre-1500 Pre-1500 Pre-1500 Pre-1500 1500– 1500– total global nonWestern 1945 1945 Western total global

1500– 1500– 1945– 1945– 1945 1945 Present present nonWestern total global Western

1935

The Making of Today’s World

1935–1939 807

305

0

0

274

501

0

81

420

0

1935

World History

1939–1947 873

440

0

62

349

485

35

57

393

0

1937

On the Road to Civilization: A World History

1939–1947 832

356

0

8

322

476

0

36

440

0

1938

Story of Civilization 1939–1947 845

278

0

6

241

566

0

41

526

1938

Man’s Great Adventure: An Introduction to World History, Revised

1939-1947

749

324

0

0

288

425

0

42

383

1946

The Making of Today’s World

1939–1947 813

305

0

0

274

496

0

74

1946

World History: The 1948–1954 820 Struggle for Civilization

214

0

5

193

597

0

1947

The World’s History 1948–1954 752

275

14

62

185

436

1947

Story of Nations

1948–1954 809

290

0

13

248

510

1947

This Our World: A Pageant of World History

1948–1954 644

234

0

18

187

1947

World History

1948–1954 586

240

0

4

1952

World History: The 1954–1962 742 Struggle For Civilization, Revised Edition

200

0

4

0

1945– 1945– Present present nonWestern Western 0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

422

11

11

0

0

60

537

9

5

0

0

0

57

379

26

26

0

0

0

107

412

9

3

0

0

410

18

45

347

0

0

0

0

217

325

0

49

276

50

38

12

0

185

496

0

66

430

46

0

22

24

192  Appendix C

Table A.4 (Continued)

Date of publication

Title

Adoption period

Total Pre-1500 Pre-1500 Pre-1500 Pre-1500 1500– 1500– total global nonWestern 1945 1945 Western total global

1951

Man’s Story: World 1954–1962 745 History in It’s Geographic Setting

245

29

1952

Man’s Achievements Through the Ages

1954–1962 774

252

0

1952

The Making of Today’s World

1954–1962 751

243

1954

The World’s History 1954–1962 733 (Revised Edition)

1960

Story of Nations

1961 1961

54

1500– 1500– 1945– 1945– 1945 1945 Present present nonWestern total global Western

1945– 1945– Present present nonWestern Western

461

0

55

406

39

39

0

0

29

194

478

0

54

424

44

44

0

0

0

15

202

466

0

44

422

40

6

14

20

269

0

46

188

407

0

60

347

57

17

18

22

1962–1971 785

214

0

9

191

533

0

140

393

36

18

12

9

The History of Our 1962–1971 794 World

248

0

42

160

495

0

91

404

51

0

21

30

Men and Nations: 1962–1971 767 A World History

223

0

7

197

474

0

69

405

69

33

0

36

1961

The Record of 1962–1971 588 Mankind Second Edition

163

0

4

142

385

0

45

340

38

38

0

0

1969

Exploring World History

1971–1977 636

187

0

43

132

373

0

52

316

76

20

29

24

1969

Living World History

1971–1977 743

289

0

73

170

389

0

42

340

63

27

20

16

1973

The Ecumene: Story 1977–1983 763 of Humanity

377

125

88

114

321

109

69

122

63

63

0

0

1975

Men and Nations: 1977–1983 833 A World History Third Edition

289

6

78

183

453

4

98

329

89

10

40

39

1977

The Pageant of World History

1977–1983 669

287

0

128

134

279

0

31

248

101

17

45

35

(Continued)

Appendix C  193

111

Date of publication

Title

Adoption period

Total Pre-1500 Pre-1500 Pre-1500 Pre-1500 1500– 1500– total global nonWestern 1945 1945 Western total global

1500– 1500– 1945– 1945– 1945 1945 Present present nonWestern total global Western

1945– 1945– Present present nonWestern Western

1983

People and Nations: 1984–1990 801 A World History

293

0

93

173

395

0

83

300

111

16

41

49

1983

World History: Patterns of Civilization

1984–1990 752

277

0

81

155

349

0

64

281

124

16

71

32

1984

World History: A Basic Approach

1984–1990

793 363

0

99

221

311

0

42

269

118

19

45

34

1989

World History: 1990–1999 Traditions and New Encounters

819 323

5

115

187

390

24

121

232

105

13

63

25

1990

The Pageant of World History

1990–1999

779 327

0

100

165

284

0

21

263

146

19

50

77

1990

History and Life 4th Edition

1990–1999

779 347

21

155

165

309

0

84

215

121

19

79

21

1990

World History: Patterns of Civilization

1990–1999

855 321

0

86

172

389

0

72

307

121

18

61

38

1990

Links Across Time and Place: A World History

1990–1999

771 369

283

21

19

301

167

21

98

99

97

0

0

1990

World History: Perspectives on the Past

1990–1999

801 319

0

98

187

367

0

42

314

113

19

53

37

1990

World History: People and Nations

1990–1999

903 321

6

116

179

425

0

98

313

155

29

75

46

1990

The History of the World

1990–1999

834 323

6

112

159

384

17

79

253

126

18

81

23

194  Appendix C

Table A.4 (Continued)

Title

Adoption period

Total Pre-1500 Pre-1500 Pre-1500 Pre-1500 1500– 1500– total global nonWestern 1945 1945 Western total global

1500– 1500– 1945– 1945– 1945 1945 Present present nonWestern total global Western

1945– 1945– Present present nonWestern Western

1994

Fearon’s World History Second Edition

1999–2003

526 180

24

22

107

247

0

70

166

97

15

52

24

1999

World History: Patterns of Interaction

1999–2003

969 413

110

152

110

433

173

54

184

121

96

25

0

1999

World History: The 1999–2003 1029 Human Experience

397

33

137

168

459

0

83

352

171

33

101

31

1999

World History: Continuity & Change

1999–2003

849 357

48

157

133

353

0

52

292

137

25

83

27

1999

World History: Connections to Today

1999–2003

981 339

6

142

151

481

72

78

293

159

21

101

27

1999

World History: The 1999–2003 1125 Human Odyssey

415

0

207

181

523

29

161

318

185

15

97

67

2003

World History: Patterns of Interaction

2003–2016

969 413

111

147

110

433

123

22

265

121

90

25

0

2003

Glencoe World History

2003–2016

981 367

0

153

171

473

0

309

145

139

15

67

51

2003

Holt World History: The Human Journey

2003–2016

997 347

0

131

183

466

0

91

349

183

24

93

58

2003

World History: Connections to Today

2003–2016

959 329

0

139

149

469

47

85

302

159

21

101

29

2016

Texas World History

2016–2023 1105

467

106

173

120

492

131

58

261

145

143

0

0

2016

World History

2016–2023

874 338

29

106

143

399

50

92

226

135

135

0

0

2016

Pearson Texas World History

2016–2023

972 377

0

168

173

458

108

56

281

136

136

0

0

Appendix C  195

Date of publication

Date of publication

Title

Adoption period

Total page count

Global page count

Non-Western page count

Western page count

1921

Modern Times and the Living Past

1925–1930

727

0

14

691

1921

World History

1925–1930

730

8

56

637

1924

Our World Today and Yesterday: A History of Modern Civilization

1925–1930

625

0

35

584

1931

Civilization in Europe: Part I. Ancient and Medieval Times. Part II. Modern Times in Europe

1930–1935

733

0

61

665

1931

The March of Civilization: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern World

1935–1939

825

17

49

731

1932

Man’s Great Adventure: An Introduction to World History

1935–1939

854

21

19

760

1934

Man’s Advancing Civilization

1935–1939

835

0

27

796

1934

Units in World History: Development of Modern Europe

1935–1939

668

0

39

619

1935

The Making of Today’s World

1935–1939

807

0

81

694

1935

World History

1939–1947

873

35

119

742

1937

On the Road to Civilization: A World History

1939–1947

832

0

44

762

1938

Story of Civilization

1939–1947

845

0

47

767

1938

Man’s Great Adventure: An Introduction to World History, Revised

1939–1947

749

0

42

671

1946

The Making of Today’s World

1939–1947

813

11

74

696

196  Appendix C

Table A.5  Global, non-Western, and Western page count data by textbook

Title

Adoption period

Total page count

Global page count

Non-Western page count

Western page count

1946

World History: The Struggle for Civilization

1948–1954

820

5

65

730

1947

The World’s History

1948–1954

752

40

119

564

1947

Story of Nations

1948–1954

809

3

120

660

1947

This Our World: A Pageant of World History

1948–1954

644

18

63

534

1947

World History

1948–1954

586

38

65

493

1952

World History: The Struggle For Civilization, Revised Edition

1954–1962

742

0

92

639

1951

Man’s Story: World History in It’s Geographic Setting

1954–1962

745

68

109

517

1952

Man’s Achievements Through the Ages

1954–1962

774

44

83

618

1952

The Making of Today’s World

1954–1962

751

6

73

644

1954

The World’s History (Revised Edition)

1954–1962

733

17

124

557

1960

Story of Nations

1962–1971

785

18

161

593

1961

The History of Our World

1962–1971

794

0

154

594

1961

Our Widening World: A History of the World’s Peoples Second Edition

1962–1971

739

48

417

288

1961

Men and Nations: A World History

1962–1971

767

33

76

638

1961

The Record of Mankind Second Edition

1962–1971

588

38

49

482

1969

Exploring World History

1971–1977

636

20

124

472

1969

Man’s Cultural Heritage: A World History Revised Edition

1971–1977

642

5

343

281

1969

Living World History

1971–1977

743

27

135

526

1970

A Global History of Man

1971–1977

739

123

388

166 (Continued)

Appendix C  197

Date of publication

Date of publication

Title

Adoption period

Total page count

1971

The Shaping of Western Society: Tradition and Change in Four Societies, An Inquiry Approach

1971–1977

721

1973

The Ecumene: Story of Humanity

1977–1983

1975

Men and Nations: A World History Third Edition

1977

Global page count

Non-Western page count

Western page count

0

342

346

763

297

157

236

1977–1983

833

20

216

551

People and Our World: A Study of World History

1977–1983

721

0

233

463

1977

The Pageant of World History

1977–1983

669

17

204

417

1977

The Human Expression: A History of Peoples and Their Cultures

1977–1983

807

0

448

333

1983

People and Nations: A World History

1984–1990

801

16

217

522

1983

World History: Patterns of Civilization

1984–1990

752

16

216

468

1984

People and Our World: A Study of World History

1984–1990

601

0

200

374

1984

World History: A Basic Approach

1984–1990

793

19

186

524

1984

History and Life: The World and Its People 2nd Edition

1984–1990

720

49

266

362

1989

World History: Traditions and New Encounters

1990–1999

819

42

299

444

1990

The Pageant of World History

1990–1999

779

19

171

505

1990

History and Life 4th Edition

1990–1999

779

40

318

401

198  Appendix C

Table A.5 (Continued)

Date of publication

Title

Adoption period

Total page count

1990

World History: Patterns of Civilization

1990–1999

855

1990

Links Across Time and Place: A World History

1990–1999

1990

World History: Perspectives on the Past

1990

World History: People and Nations

1990 1994

Global page count

Western page count

18

219

517

771

547

42

117

1990–1999

801

19

193

538

1990–1999

903

35

289

538

The History of the World

1990–1999

834

41

272

435

Fearon’s World History Second Edition

1999–2003

526

39

144

297

1999

World History: Patterns of Interaction

1999–2003

969

379

231

294

1999

World History: The Human Experience

1999–2003

1029

66

321

551

1999

World History: Continuity & Change

1999–2003

849

73

292

452

1999

World History: Connections to Today

1999–2003

981

99

321

471

1999

World History: The Human Odyssey

1999–2003

1125

44

465

566

2003

World History: Patterns of Interaction

2003–2016

969

324

194

375

2003

Glencoe World History

2003–2016

981

15

529

367

2003

Holt World History: The Human Journey

2003–2016

997

24

315

590

2003

World History: Connections to Today

2003–2016

959

68

325

480

2016

Texas World History

2016–2023

1105

380

231

381

2016

World History

2016–2023

874

214

198

369

2016

Pearson Texas World History

2016–2023

972

244

224

454

Appendix C  199

Non-Western page count

200  Appendix C

Notes 1 Michael Marino, “High School World History Textbooks: An Analysis of Content Focus and Chronological Approaches,” The History Teacher 44, no. 3 (2011): 421–46. I’d like to thank Michael Marino for his helpful advice and assistance with this project in its early development stages. 2 For an overview of some of the issues involved in using a Western Civilization framework in a World History context, see Peter Stearns, Western Civilization in World History (New York: Routledge, 2003). See also Gilbert Allardyce, “The Rise and Fall of the Western Civilization Course,” The American Historical Review 87, no. 3 (1982): 695–725; Daniel Segal, “‘Western Civ’ and the Staging of History in American Higher Education,” The American Historical Review 105, no. 3 (2000): 770–805. 3 Ross Dunn discusses the differences between what he calls “Civilizationism” versus “Humanocentric” History in “World History Education Around the World.”

Index

Page numbers in  bold  indicate tables, page numbers in  italic  indicate ­figures and page numbers followed by ‘n’ indicate notes. Abdou, Ehaab 19n40, 24n91 Abrahamse, Dorothy 108n36 Adams, Fay 110n90 adoption period: average percentage of content 188, 190; chronological era page count data by textbook 188, 189, 191–195; global interaction 187–188; global, non-Western, Western page count 188, 189, 196–199; in 1925–1930 179; in 1930–1935 179–180; in 1935–1939 180; in 1939–1947 180–181; in 1948–1954 181; in 1954–1962 181; in 1962–1971 181; in 1971–1977 181–182; in 1977–1983 182; in 1984–1990 182; in 1990–1999 182–183; in 1999–2003 183; in 2003–2016 183–184; in 2016–2022/23 184 Advanced Placement World History (APWH) course 5, 7–9, 74, 169–171 A Global History of Man 48, 122 Allardyce, Gilbert 2–3, 17n14–17n15, 17n18, 20n49, 52n13, 53n31, 56n88, 107n8 Allen, Jason 18n36 Alm, Martin 17n21, 163n6 Alvermann, Donna 18n36 American capitalism 66, 68, 157 American Historical Association (AHA) 34–37, 63, 144, 169 American History 2, 35–36, 39, 62, 73 American imperialism 117, 121, 133; anti-colonial nationalism 132; civilizing mission 130; cost-benefit

approach 130–131; empire denialism 127; exceptionalism 127; Fearon’s World History 131; interwar period 128; Man’s Story: World History in its Geographic Setting 129–130; occupation benefits 132; Our World Today and Yesterday 129; A Pageant of World History 131; territorial acquisition 128; Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) 126–127, 132; Units in World History 129; U.S. activities identification 127–128 Americanization 38 American nationalism 4–5, 173 American school curriculum 2, 15, 32, 34, 37 A Nation at Risk 65 Ancient History 33, 35–36, 42, 49 Anderson, Howard 90, 107n13, 107n19–107n20, 109n50, 163n8, 164n37, 164n41, 164n44 Anderson, R.B. 45 anti-colonial nationalism 120–121, 125, 132, 150–151 Apple, Michael W. 23n79 Armitage, David 13, 24n90 Asensio, Mikel 134n5 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal 96–97 Bain, Robert B. 21n52–21n53, 21n56, 79n15 Bajalan, Djene 95, 108n37, 108n39 Balch, Stephen 170, 175n8 Barker, Thomas 17n11

202 Index Barnard, J. Lynn 52n6 Bartlett, Hall 107n19–107n20, 109n50 Barton, David 73, 83n99–83n100, 126, 138n73 Becker, Carl 55n70, 119–120, 136n25–136n26, 136n37 Beck, Roger 108n32, 165n81 Beers, Burton 81n59, 94, 104, 107n22, 108n35, 110n102, 124, 130–131, 163n10 Bentley, Jerry 16n4 Besse, Susan 18n36 Beyer, Barry 165n77 Biggar, Nigel 116, 135n7 ‘Big History,’ 6, 172 Biller, Edward 97, 109n55 Bining, Arthur 164n38 Black Death 188 Black, Linda 108n32 Black Lives Matter movement 116 Blanton, Annie Webb 38, 53n19, 53n35 Blaut, J.M. 116–117, 135n12 Boak, Arthur 90, 107n13, 107n19– 107n20, 109n50, 137n54, 151, 163n8, 164n37, 164n41, 164n44, 165n57–165n58 Bock, Annekatrin 23n84 Bolgatz, Jane 24n89, 56n92 Bolshevik Party 147 Bradley Commission 62 Bralley, F.M. 53n17 Breasted, James Henry 54n47, 107n7, 110n81, 163n14 British imperialism 116 British Labor Party 147 Brockman, David 73, 75, 83n94, 84n112, 84n115 Brown, Anthony 18n36 Brown, Keffrelyn 18n36 Brown, Walker 110n90 Buck, Janiece 82n67, 82n70 Burack, Jonathan 20n46 Burroughs, Robert 134n3 Burton, Antoinette 16n6 capitalism 12–13, 15, 64, 66, 145, 148–149, 152, 155, 157, 161, 173 Carretero, Mario 134n5 Chancey, Mark A. 16n10, 83n97 Chantiluke, Roseann 134n4, 175n5 Cheney, Lynne 62–63

child-centered education 5 Christian, David 18n34, 172, 175n14 Christian-Smith, Linda 23n79 citizenship 4, 12, 32, 37–38, 41, 46, 70, 173 Civilization in Europe 40, 96 “Civilizationism,” 200n3 civilizing mission 115, 118, 126, 130 civil rights movement 6 Clark, Anna 135n8 Cold War 4, 152–155, 157 colonial violence 125 Commeyras, Michelle 18n36 Committee of Seven report 35, 37 communism 15, 66, 145, 147–148, 150–155, 157 Communist Party 153 communist subversion 152–154 conservative critics 7, 14, 63 conservative reactionary movement 12 ‘content advisers,’ 76 content knowledge 4–5, 67, 76 Cornbleth, Catherine 79n11 cost-benefit approach 124–125, 130–131 Countryman, Edward 75, 84n114 Crabtree, Charlotte 16n8, 62 Critical Race Theory (CRT) 169 Crocco, Margaret 18n36, 54n55 Cuban, Larry 33, 51n4 Cunningham, Sean 22n71 curricular revision 41–43, 69–70, 73 Dante, Harris 56n97 Davis, Daniel 109n61 Davis, Martin A. 18n33 ‘decline’ of Habsburg Austria 95 decolonization 50, 91, 117, 121–122, 124–127, 134, 154, 169 de la Teja, Jesús F. 16n10, 73, 83n98 democracy 12–13, 15, 35, 40, 68–69, 92–93, 103–104, 118, 122, 127, 133, 144–145, 147–162, 173 Dewey, John 10 Donaldson, Emily 174n2 Doughty, W.F. 53n18 Dozono, Tadashi 176n22 Dreisbach, Daniel 73 Duncalf, Frederic 55n70, 120, 136n25–136n26, 136n37 Dunn, Arthur William 18n25, 18n27, 36, 53n23

Index  203 Dunn, Ross 16n8, 17n13, 17n17, 52n12, 77, 79n13–79n14, 81n63–81n64, 84n127, 84n129, 94, 108n36, 109n59, 109n60, 200n3 early development of World History, 1920s–1970s: American Historical Association (AHA) 34–35; Committee of Seven report 35; curricular guides 38–39; enrollment numbers 36; European History 39–40; international affairs 41–42; National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) 37; 1938 program of study 41–42; nonEuropean history 40; Official curricula for World History 33; Rugg’s activism 40–41; social studies 36–39, 41–43; state approved textbooks 42; statemandated standards 33; tradition, disruption, and reaction, 1949– 1980 43–50, 47, 49, 50 “Eastern civilizations,” 71 educational reform 11, 38, 63 Education Research Analysts 116 Ellington, Lucien 18n36, 20n45 Elliott, Mary 174n1 Ellis, Elizabeth Gaynor 93, 100–101, 104–105, 107n27, 110n78, 132, 139n108, 161, 163n11, 166n83, 166n91 Elson, Henry W. 95–96, 108n48, 109n73, 110n80, 147, 163n3, 163n12 Elson, Ruth Miller 16n7 Erekson, Keith 16n9, 16n10, 23n80, 73, 83n95 Esler, Anthony 93, 100–101, 104–105, 107n27, 110n78, 132, 139n108, 161, 163n11, 166n83, 166n91 Essential Elements 64–68, 70, 77–78, 123, 157 Eurocentrism 1, 3–4, 39, 67, 71, 116–117, 121–122, 170, 172; The American Historical Review 89; course content 12–13; criticisms of course 6, 91; decolonization 91; “flexible positional superiority,” 88; historical linearity 92; modernization, development, and westernization 93–94; narratives of

modern Japan 100–105; Ottoman Empire 94–99; rise of civilization 90–92 European history 8, 32, 34–35, 37, 39–40, 89–90, 97, 118, 173 European imperialism 129, 148 European Renaissance 34, 48, 118 Evans, Ronald 16n5, 16n9, 51n2, 52n8, 52n11, 52n15, 53n21, 53n29, 54n57, 78n1 Ewert, Cody 18n26, 24n88, 38, 53n34, 176n18 Ewing, Ethel 56n105–56n107, 103, 110n94–110n95, 163n9 Exploring World History 49, 97 Farah, Mounir 125 Farmer, Edward 108n36 Fenn, H.C. 17n22 Finn, Chester Jr. 18n33, 21n58 Finney, Ross 53n26 Fischer, Fritz 16n5, 63, 79n21, 84n126 Fisher, David C. 18n35, 74, 110n83 Fitzgerald, Frances 20n41 Ford, Richard 137n47–137n48 Framework for the Social Studies 47, 64 Fuchs, Eckhardt 17n16, 23n84 Funkhouser, Charles W. 23n78 Gabler, Mel 10, 116 Gabler, Norma 10, 116 Gambrill, J.M. 1, 16n3 Gandhi, Indira 74 Gandhi, Mohandas 74 Garvey, James 108n36 Gathany, J. Madison 108n44, 129, 148–150, 163n7, 164n20, 164n28, 164n30 Gaudelli, William 16n6, 175n15 General History 35–37, 42, 45 “geopolitical and religious influences,” 76–77 Gewertz, Catherine 84n111 Gibbons, Alexandra 174n1 Gilley, Bruce 116 Girard, Brian 17n12, 20n43, 21n57 Glass, H.A. 55n73 Goldman, Eric 110n91 Good, John 122, 137n47–137n48 Gorbachev, Mikhail 157

204 Index Gowaskie, Joe 47, 56n109 Great Depression 34, 40, 42, 145, 147–149, 188 Greenan, John T. 108n44, 129, 148–150, 163n7, 164n20, 164n28, 164n30 Grossberg, Michael 89, 106n3 Grossman, James 174n2 Grubb, W. Norton 80n36 Gutierrez-Smith, Patricia 80n42 Habberton, William 103, 110n92, 121, 123, 136n44–136n45, 137n52 Hamilton, Richard 18n36 “Handbook for Curriculum Study,” 40–41 Hanes III, William Travis 132, 139n106, 166n84 Hannah-Jones, Nicole 174n1 Harder, Anna 53n33 Harris, Jeannette 109n61 Harris, Lauren McArthur 16n6, 17n12, 20n43, 21n57 Hartman, Andrew 152, 164n48 Hayes, Carlton 42, 55n71, 164n24 Heckel, Albert 55n70, 102, 110n82, 110n87, 119, 136n27 Heilig, Julian 18n36 Henderson, Katherine Bradford 54n51 Hennessey, John 110n100 History and Life: The World and Its People 156 Hodgson, Marshall 7, 17n22, 19n39, 45, 56n95, 98, 109n58 Holt, Sol 57n118, 109n54, 110n93 Honig, Bill 62 Hooks, Christopher 174n2 House Bill 72 65 House Bill (H.B.) 246 65 Howe, Stephen 115, 134n1 “How European History Merged into World History,” 118 Howland, Arthur 164n38 Hughes, Jazmine 174n1 Hughes, R.O. 4, 18n24, 44–45, 55n70, 55n83–55n84, 55n86, 102, 109n49, 120–121, 128–129, 135n18, 136n41, 149–150, 153, 164n25, 164n34, 165n53 Hughes-Warrington, Marnie 52n12 “Humanocentric” History 200n3 Hunt, Erling 110n91 Hutchins, Rachel D. 18n29

imperialism 14, 41–42, 91, 102, 104–105, 115–116, 134, 155, 188; American Imperialism 126–133; Black Lives Matter movement 116; colonialism 116; The Colonizer’s Model of the World 116–117; debates 116; #RhodesMustFall movement 116; textbook depictions of 117–126 interwar anxiety: “backward peoples,” 150; Bolshevik Revolution 147; democracy and capitalism 148; dictatorships 149; First World War 147; global anti-colonial nationalist movements 150; The Making of Today’s World 150; The March of Civilization 150; New Deal 149; rise of fascism 148; Second World War 150–151; textbook authors 151–152; This Our World: A Pageant of World History 151; “undemocratic developments,” 148; Units in World History 148–149; U.S. activity 147 interwar textbooks 118, 153 “Islam influences” law 76 Jackson, Barbara B. 62, 79n9 Jackson, Kenneth T. 62, 79n9 Jantzen, Steven 165n74 Johnson, Bobbie Stevens 80n35 Johnston, Deborah Smith 52n12 Jones, Jacqueline 174n2 Journal of World History 3 Kang, Sunjoo 16n6, 52n12 Karls, Andrea 125 Keirn, Tim 20n44, 21n55 Kemerer, Frank 82n68 King, A.K. 5, 18n32, 82n84 Kliebard, Herbert 51n2 Knebel, Julius 79n31 Kownslar, Allan O. 23n81, 80n42, 83n110 Krieger, Larry S. 165n74 Krug, Mark M. 91, 97, 107n16–107n17, 109n55 Kwoba, Brian 175n5 Lane, Frederic 110n91 Leinwand, Gerald 69, 81n60, 107n23, 109n53, 124, 131, 139n101–139n102, 155, 165n61

Index  205 Leming, James 20n45 Links Across Time and Space 69, 94 Loewen, James 16n7 Lowry, Sandra 82n67, 82n70 Maier, Donna 80n42 Mandela, Nelson 74 Manning, Patrick 52n12 Man’s Achievement Through the Ages 121 Man’s Advancing Civilization 96 Man’s Great Adventure 96, 119–120 Marino, Michael P. 24n89, 52n5, 56n92, 187, 200n1 Marrs, S.M.N. 54n40–54n41, 54n43, 54n46, 54n49 Marshall, Peter 73 Martin, A.B. 43–44, 55n76, 55n78, 55n80, 55n87, 56n93 Mazour, Anatole 56n104, 69, 81n61, 108n31, 109n74, 153, 159, 165n51, 165n79 McKinley, William 128 McLaughlin, Andrew C. 52n9–52n10, 52n14 McLeroy, Don 73, 83n92 McNeill, William H. 5, 7, 18n30, 32, 48, 50, 56n88, 57n116, 57n120, 62, 156, 165n63 McTighe, Jay 92, 105, 107n26, 109n69 Mead, Walter Russell 6, 18n33, 19n37, 71, 82n82 Medieval History 35–36 Meiji Restoration 104–105 Menelik II 125 Metro, Rosalie 172, 176n16 Mifflin, Houghton 101 Minnie, Lloyd 107n14 Mintz, Steve 175n8 Mitchell, Laura 17n13 Modern History 35–36, 39 modernization 92–94, 155 Modern Problems course: adopted textbooks 146–147; authorial choices, publishing practices, and precise timing 146; democracy and capitalism 145; interwar anxiety 147–152; TEKS 157–161; textbook anxieties 145; Western Civilization, 1950s–1980s 152–157 Modern Times and the Living Past 95–96

Montgomery, Margret 78n7, 79n30 Moon, Parker Thomas 42, 55n71–55n72, 164n24 Moreau, Joseph 16n7, 40, 54n56 Morris, Richard B. 54n52, 102, 108n45–108n46, 110n86 Mughal empire 98 multiculturalism 6–7, 11–12 Muzzey, David Saville 107n14 narratives of modern Japan: European economic and social practices, imitation of 101–102; Exploring World History 103–104; imperial expansion 102; industrialization 104; Japanese isolation 100–101; The Making of Today’s World 102; Meiji Restoration 104–105; modernization 104–105; Our World Today and Yesterday 101; Tokugawa Shogunate 100–101; Westernization 102–105 Nash, Gary B. 16n8, 62, 79n17 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) 37 National Education Association (NEA) 36–37 nationalism 1, 12, 39, 67, 121–122, 152, 154–155 Naylor, Philip 108n32 Nehru, Jawaharlal 20n48 Neill, Kenneth 165n74 Nielsen, Mads Bomholt 134n2 Nkopo, Athinangamso 175n5 Noboa, Julio 18n36, 19n40, 71, 82n78 non-American history content 4 Non-Subversive Oath law 153 non-Western history 33–34, 48, 68, 68, 75–76, 90–92 Northrop, Douglas 5, 18n31 O’Brien, Patrick 110n97 O’Connor, John R. 57n118, 109n54, 110n93 On the Road to Civilization 119 Orril, Robert 53n32 Oslund, Karen 17n16 Ottoman Empire: ageless premodern existence 94; criticism 96; History of the World 98; interwar period 96–97; Links Across Time and Space 98; narrative of perpetual decline 94–97; religious tolerance 96;

206 Index stereotyped descriptions 94; Tanzimat 99; Turkish misrule and decline 97–98; western ideas, political structures, and culture 97; World History: Continuity & Change 98–99 Our Widening World 46, 48 Our World Today and Yesterday 39, 90 Pahlow, Edwin 55n70, 101–102, 107n11, 108n43, 110n83, 119, 148–149, 163n17–163n19, 164n26 Patrick, Diane 81n65, 82n69 Peoples, John M. 56n104, 69, 108n31, 109n74, 153, 165n51, 165n79 Perkins, Clarence 108n47, 148, 163n16 Perot, Ross 65 Perry, Marvin 109n61 Perry, Matthew 100 Peters, Emma Smith 54n47, 107n7, 107n14 Porter, Kathleen 20n45 post-World War II 123 presentism 1, 12–13, 39, 67 Problems of Democracy 37 professional historical approach 12 ‘pros and cons’ approach 124, 126 Protestant Reformation 34 Quillen, James 110n96, 133, 138n91, 154, 165n55 “radical Islamic terror,” 77 Ragsdale, R.L. 38, 53n19, 53n35 Ravina, Mark 110n77, 110n101 Ravitch, Diane 62, 79n12 Ray, Rashawn 174n1 Reagan, Ronald 61 Reich, Jerome 97, 109n55–109n56 #RhodesMustFall movement 116, 169 Robinson, James Harvey 54n47, 90, 107n7, 110n81, 163n14 Rodriguez-Moneo, Maria 134n5 Roehm, A. Wesley 165n59 Rogers, Lester 110n90 Romero, Oscar 74 Ross, E. Wayne 36, 53n22 Roth, Lawrence 103, 110n92, 121, 123, 136n44–136n45, 137n52 Rugg, Harold 40, 54n54, 149, 164n23 “rugged individualism,” 40 Ryerson, Egerton 116

Sadler, Philip 22n62 Safavid empire 98 Said, Edward 106n2 Satia, Priya 124 Scanlan, Andrew 21n58 Schafer, Joseph 53n27 Schapiro, J. Salwyn 54n52, 102, 108n45–108n46, 110n84, 110n86 Schillings, Denny 108n36 Scholl, Allan 109n61 Schriener, Tamara L. 21n52, 21n53 Schrier, Arnold 80n42 Schwartz, Donald 165n77 Segal, Daniel 17n20, 56n88, 89, 106n1, 107n4, 111n111 Seth, Sanjay 106, 111n112 Shabaka, Dahia 108n32 Shapiro, Linn 53n32 Shelby, T.H. 53n17 Shiels, Albert 37, 53n28, 53n30 Shryock, Richard 164n38 Sigman, James 55n70, 102, 110n82, 110n87, 119, 136n27 Silverstein, Jake 174n1 Slosson, Preston 90, 107n13, 107n19, 107n20, 109n50, 163n8, 164n37, 164n41, 164n44 Smart, Terry 80n42 Smith, Emma Peters 163n14 Smith II, Henry D. 110n76, 110n81 socialism 147 social studies approach 36–37, 39, 41–42; cultural indebtedness 44; guidelines 43; international content 43–44; 1949 curriculum 44–45; Texas Education Agency (TEA) 45–46 “Social Studies in the Secondary Schools,” 43 Social Studies Writing Group 70 Spanish American War 129–130 Spielvogel, Jackson 92, 99, 105, 107n26, 108n28, 109n69, 166n89–166n90 standards movement, 1980–present: Essential Elements 64–67; History-Social Science Framework 61–62; National History Project 63; National Standards 63; A Nation at Risk 61; optimism 62–63; politicized attacks 68, 68–72; publishers, textbook authors, and educators 63;

Index  207 religious studies 73–74; standards advocates 62; State Board of Education (SBOE) 73; ‘streamlining’ process 76–77; Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) 68, 68–72; Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) 68, 68–72, 74–75; Texas Freedom Network (TFN) 75; 2010 revision process 73; 2016 Texas textbooks 75–76; World History Association (WHA) 62 State Board of Education (SBOE) 2, 10, 65, 67–70, 73, 76, 153, 171–172 State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) 72 State Textbook Committee 153 Stavrianos, Leften 7, 48, 57n117, 122 Stearns, Peter N. 1, 7, 15n2, 20n51, 77, 80n50, 82n84, 84n128, 165n77, 200n2 Stigler, W.A. 40, 54n53, 54n58, 54n60, 54n61, 55n66, 55n69, 164n22 Story of Civilization 120 student enrollment 35–36, 47 Suter, Joanne 139n100 Swidler, Eva-Maria 17n16, 81n51 Symcox, Linda 78n2, 78n6, 79n16, 79n18, 79n19–79n20 teacher primers/manuals 2 Teaching Social Studies in Junior and Senior High Schools of Texas 41 Texas adoption period, 1977–1999 68, 68, 69 Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) 72 Texas Education Agency (TEA) 33, 43, 45, 48, 64–65, 69–70, 72, 169–170 Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) 2, 70–73, 126–127, 132; adoption periods (1999 and 2003) 159–160; ‘command economies,’ 160–161; communism 157; ‘free market economies,’ 160–161; for social studies 169; “The Move Toward Freedom,” 157–158; Work Group 170; World History: People and Nations 159; World History: Perspectives on the Past 158; World

History: Traditions and New Directions 158 Texas Freedom Network (TFN) 75 The Ecumene: The Story of Humanity 155–156 The High School Journal 45 The History of Our World 91 The Making of the Modern World 44 The Making of Today’s World 96 The March of Civilization 90 The Pageant of World History 69, 92, 97, 155 The Record of Mankind 154 The Shaping of Western Society 122 The Social Studies in Education 4, 36–37 The Study of History in Schools 35 “The Triumph of Imperialism,” 118 “The World-Wide Advance of European Civilization,” 118 Tokugawa Shogunate 100–101 Touré, Samory 125 Townsend, Robert B. 51n1 Tryon, Rolla M. 20n47 Tyrrell, Ian 19n39, 51n1 Units in World History 96 Van Nieuwenhuysen, Karel 116, 135n6 Victor, David 108n36 Von Laue, Theodore 109n61 Wallbank, T. Walter 80n42, 103, 110n96, 130, 133, 138n91, 154, 165n55 Walsh, Jim 82n68 Ward, Kerry 17n13 Ward, Kyle 16n7 Watras, Joseph 54n55 Waugh, Dexter 79n11 Wayland, John 42, 55n71, 55n72, 164n24 Webster, Hutton 118, 147, 163n13 Weisner-Hanks, Merry 78, 84n130 Welty, Paul 48, 57n115 Wesley, Edgar B. 45, 56n96 West, Edith 55n85 Western Civilization 2–3, 7–8, 32, 62, 67, 90–91, 123, 171, 173; bipolarity and triumph, 1950s–1980s 152–157; curriculum 43–45

208 Index ‘Western Heritage’ model 7 Westernization 92–94, 102–103 William, Marvin 165n72 Williams, William Appleman 126 Woods, L.A. 149 World Geography 47, 47, 72 World History Association (WHA) 2–3, 7, 62, 67, 171, 173 World History: Connections to Today 93 World History course 1–3; classroom 173; college-level Western Civilization course 13–14; criticisms 5–9; democracy and capitalism 15; evolution 9–13; First World War 4; imperialism 14–15; non-Western peoples 14; social studies educators 4–5; standards movement 4, 14; textbook authors 91 World History: Patterns of Civilization 69

World History: Patterns of Interaction 93 World History: Peoples and Nations 69, 93 World History: Perspectives on the Past 69, 123 World History: The Human Odyssey 93 World History: The Struggle for Civilization 91 World War I 4, 34, 36, 38, 94–97, 99, 127, 146–147, 151–152 World War II 6, 32–33, 43, 92, 102–105, 116, 121, 123, 129, 145, 150–151, 162, 171 “The World-Wide Advance of European Civilization,” 118 Worley, Gordon 43–44, 55n76, 55n78, 55n80, 55n87, 56n93 Woyshner, Christine 54n55 Wrench, Jesse 107n9, 150, 164n31 Zimmerman, Jonathan 16n5, 54n45