Bookish Behavior

By Clayton Neuman

When it comes to issues such as war, genocide or religious conflict, few parties want to admit wrongdoing, and few are in agreement. That makes writing history textbooks free of biases, and fair to all sides of the showdown, a daunting task. But in the U.S. as well as around the world, some authors are attempting to take it on. Here are some examples of their efforts.

TEACHING BOTH SIDES Israeli and Palestinian professors have drafted pamphlets setting the two groups' competing histories side by side, asking students to draw their own conclusions. The Israeli and Palestinian ministries of education have yet to sanction the texts, but backers hope that schools--on both sides--will quietly start using them.

DISCORD Citizens in China rioted after Japan approved a text in April that calls acts of war, like the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, "incidents." Only 0.4% of schools use the book, and last week China and Japan began talks to quell such longtime tensions.

ONE NATION UNDER GOD How did the Bible Literacy Project create The Bible and Its Influences, a legal text for use in U.S. public schools? By assembling 41 believers--Protestants, Catholics, Jews--and including multiple views on topics like original sin.

ON THE SAME PAGE French and German scholars are writing a text for the 2006-07 school year that will present students with even-handed perspectives of their adversarial histories--including the biases each assigned to the translations of treaties.