Shaping History through Textbooks

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Despite complaints from China and South Korea, Japan has refused to revise its textbooks. In Israel, dispute continues over how to teach the origin of the state and whether to depict Palestinians as aggressors or victims. In the US, there are similar concerns about the teaching of the treatment of Native Americans, slavery and the World War II internment of Japanese Americans. We look at the teaching of history from Asia to the Middle East to the US and how accuracy conflicts with nationalism with those who write, report and purchase history books. Newsmaker: Raising the Kursk in the City of Murmansk - The 18,000-ton Russian atomic submarine Kursk is still at the bottom of the Barents Sea, but President Putin is trying to raise her and the 118 crewmen who died when the ship sank last year. The BBC's Jonathon Charles has more on the monumentally dangerous cooperative effort to raise the sub, which sits in international fishing waters. Reporter's Notebook: Study Finds Six Million Votes Uncounted Votes - After studying last year's presidential election, researchers at two of America's most prestigious scientific universities concluded that the voting process is not considered a serious element of the democratic process. Charles Stewart, of the CalTech-MIT Voting Technology Project, has more on what is and what could be.
Despite complaints from China and South Korea, Japan has refused to revise its textbooks. In Israel, dispute continues over how to teach the origin of the state and whether to depict Palestinians as aggressors or victims. In the US, there are similar concerns about the teaching of the treatment of Native Americans, slavery and the World War II internment of Japanese Americans. We look at the teaching of history from Asia to the Middle East to the US and how accuracy conflicts with nationalism with those who write, report and purchase history books.
  • Newsmaker: Raising the Kursk in the City of Murmansk - The 18,000-ton Russian atomic submarine Kursk is still at the bottom of the Barents Sea, but President Putin is trying to raise her and the 118 crewmen who died when the ship sank last year. The BBC's Jonathon Charles has more on the monumentally dangerous cooperative effort to raise the sub, which sits in international fishing waters.
  • Reporter's Notebook: Study Finds Six Million Votes Uncounted Votes - After studying last year's presidential election, researchers at two of America's most prestigious scientific universities concluded that the voting process is not considered a serious element of the democratic process. Charles Stewart, of the CalTech-MIT Voting Technology Project, has more on what is and what could be.

BBC

Lies My Teacher Told Me

The New York Times

Yomiuri Shimbun

CalTech-MIT/Voting Technology Project

Credits

Host:

Warren Olney