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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Meaningful Report from the Trenches of the "Culture Wars", July 31, 2006
Begun in 1989 as a bi-partisan initiative to enhance the teaching of K-12 history to America's students, the authors of this book--Gary B. Nash, Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross E. Dunn--along with many others, prepared a set of guidelines and teaching examples that would guide instructors in the preparation of their classes. "History on Trial" is largely about the effort to prepare the guidelines and the furor that they caused in the mid-1990s, although there is a discussion in the early part of the book about the "culture wars" in general in the latter twentieth century.
Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and aided by the Department of Education, the effort to develop these National Standards at UCLA's National Center for History in the Schools derailed in 1994 because of a conservative attack that characterized the effort as "hijacked" by political correctness and the agenda of the American Left. Led by Lynne Cheney, former head of the NEH, and aided by conservative commentators ranging from Rush Limbaugh to William Bennett to Charles Krauthammer, conservatives criticized the work of a large community of historians and teachers who developed these voluntary standards. They questioned the effort to challenge students to consider new ways of seeing the past, they criticized the reexamination of traditional interpretations, they abhorred a more multicultural and questioning approach to delving into history. It was during this era that "revisionist history" first entered the lexicon as a term of derision, as if understanding of the past could never be altered in any way.
The opening salvo of this debate began in October 1994 in the pages of the "Wall Street Journal" when Lynne Cheney ambushed Nash and the others involved in the writing of the history standards. She questioned mostly, as did other critics, the teaching examples packaged with the standards. The standards themselves were relatively non-controversial and quite rigorous statements of what students should know at a given point in their education. Representative of the right's criticisms, Krauthammer wrote, "The whole document strains to promote the achievements and highlight the victimization of the country's preferred minorities, while straining equally to degrade the achievements and highlight the flaws of the white males who ran the country for its first two centuries" (pp. 189-90). As evidence, the critics mined the teaching examples for relative mentions of people and events (Speckled Snake, a Cherokee warrior, or Mercy Otis Warren, or any number of other non-traditional figures in American history texts), for challenges to students to reconsider traditional understandings (for example, questions about the relative place of Columbus in American history, as a vanguard of progress or conquest), as a statement of misplaced emphasis (shifting more toward world history rather than stressing Western Civilization).
For more than a year the onslaught continued, with Nash, et al., answering the challenges. This book details the debate, offers rebuttals by the advocates of the standards, admits some errors both in substance and in strategy to answering the critics, and discusses the revisions of the standards that eventually led to the jettisoning of the teaching examples and other changes. Most important, and this has been repeated many times in the culture wars, the facts of the controversy got lost in the media blasts. Never mind that many of the criticisms were groundless, few people actually read the standards. Even Congress got into the act, passing a resolution condemning the standards even though they were completely voluntary and not a part of any official educational requirement.
What I found most interesting about "History on Trial" was the fierceness of the debate. Nash, et al., suggested, and I agree, that this was the case because of the need to redefine national identity and a concern that the bulwarks of traditional conceptions may be crumbling. This has recast historical inquiry as an intellectual battleground where the casualties are no longer theories about the past that matter mostly to historians but the overall "weltanschauung" of society in a post-modern, multicultural, anti-hierarchical age. The fundamental philosophical thrust of modern society has been a blurring of the line between fact and fiction, between realism and poetry, between the unrecoverable past and our memory of it. This raising of the inexact character of historical "truth," as well as its relationship to myth and memory and the reality of the dim and unrecoverable past, has foreshadowed deep fissures in the landscape of identity and what it means to be American. Truth, it seems, has differed from time to time and place to place with reckless abandon and enormous variety. Choice between them is present everywhere both in the past and the present; my truth dissolves into your myth and your truth into my myth almost as soon as it is articulated. We see this reinforced everywhere about us today, and mostly we shake our heads and misunderstand the versions of truth espoused by various groups about themselves and about those excluded from their fellowship.
The desperation of competing claims on the past are played out very publicly, and not without rancor, in such large-scale settings as the debate over the national history standards. "History on Trial" is a very fine discussion of this debate, of course written from the perspective of the authors of the standards. I have read the standards in their various versions over the years, and I believe they are remarkably comprehensive and valuable, so I have my own positive perspective on this matter beyond reading "History on Trial." I would very much like to read a history of the debate written by Lynne Cheney or other critics of the standards. It would add to the offerings in the marketplace of ideas, a marketplace that I still believe has an important role in modern America despite those who would seek to limit its discourse.
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18 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Historical Context of the Recent History Debates, October 24, 2000
Gary B. Nash, Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross E. Dunn have written a fascinating book that looks at the problems which occur when politics and the teaching history clash, as they inevitably will. The specific event described is the fight over the National History Standards which were established to give states and local school boards voluntary guidelines. The idea blew up when Lynne Cheney wrote an op-ed piece damning the standards. All three authors were involved in the project and bring their personal views and insights to the book in a helpful way. The most interesting aspect of the book is both the historical and international aspects applied to the history wars. It allows the reader to put this recent battle into a more helpful historical perspective as many examples from the past are presented. The examples from the other countries are also useful in giving a global approach to the issues. This is how it should be for a book that covers the battles over what should be taught to children concerning U.S. and world history. A good book that shows the problems that begin when politicians get involved in the teaching of history.
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28 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A classroom teacher analyzes the ongoing history war., November 15, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past (Hardcover)
The dedication reads simply, "This book is dedicated to the nation's history teachers". Being a member of such an oft-maligned group, this reviewer could not fail to read every word of History on Trial with critical interest. Nash and company give a fascinating overview of the debates that have raged regarding the teaching of America's history and continue to torment our national conscience today. As a history of history alone the book would be worthwhile. The primary controversy explored involves the uproar that arose over publication of the national history standards. These had been developed by the National Center for History in the Schools, established and funded by the NEH, headed by Lynne Cheney from 1986-1992. While some of the writing does seem a defense of the embattled authors being assaulted by right-wing conservatives, both critics and defenders of the NCHS are quoted liberally. In fact, it is noted that there were few defenders in the early days of the attacks. The reader is allowed to make up his/her own mind. The initiative to develop standards came at a time when many were charging that our nation's schools were failing. George Bush had developed the Goals 2000 plan and education committees, governors, state legislatures, and local education boards began to seek solutions. The problems were not with the idea of setting standards, but with a perceived emphasis on social history and historical interpretation skills at the expense of rote memorization of traditional names, dates, and events. The US history standards were the most viciously attacked. Critics did not want teachers to discuss failures or faults with the system. They preferred glorification of national heroes (adult, white males) and national institutions. In World History, critics objected to what they considered excessive inclusion of contributions from Asian, African and Latin American nations to the detriment of the traditional Western Civilization emphasis. Surprisingly, the standards received little criticism at the elementary and middle school level. Critics included Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, Lynne Cheney (once an ardent supporter) and Lamar Alexander. The attacks were leveled largely not at the standards themselves, but at sample lesson plans that accompanied them. Many critics did not seem to have read the standards. Having been a participant in the implementation of these controversial standards in a secondary public school US History classroom, using materials that had been developed by the NCHS, this reviewer can assert that the war is ongoing. However, the very conflict-laden nature of the teaching of history is one of the characteristics that keeps it so vital and interesting. For hope, all readers should look forward to the final chapter, "Lessons from the History Wars". This should be required reading for all potential history teachers now in college classrooms.
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