Reply #21: Depends. I teach college level, and we can choose our own books - [View All]

[enlightenment]

sometimes a department will have a preset survey text, just for expediency. My understanding at high-school level is that they have no (or little) choice - some group or body or committee at some level chooses the textbooks each year. That idea gives me the willies.

Everyone loves Zinn - he's a fun read. Read in concert with other books with other slants, he's very useful. As a primary textbook, he's no better than a 'great man' text - it's just a different kind of bias. We may like it better and approve of it more, but that doesn't change the fact that Zinn writes with an agenda (we just like his agenda). He's kind of like Patti Limerick; making up for deficits of past histories - but doing so by leaving out bits that might help someone understand the all-important 'why' of history. His is an important voice, but it is still only one voice among many.

When I was an undergrad, one of my professor's assigned a particular book to the class (upper division Asian History course). We were to read it and write reviews, which would then be shared in class. We had three weeks. After the first week, we were huddling together before and after class, comparing notes on the book. It was a horror - so bad as to be done-right nasty. We couldn't FATHOM why he had assigned this book! Didn't he KNOW how bad it was?

Now, this professor was something of a curmudgeon, known for writing scathing assessments of our work; an "A" was a small miracle, regardless of how well we did. Many of the student's were loath to write a critical review of the book - fearful of the prof's wrath. What if the author was a friend or something?

A few of us did suck it up and wrote what we thought. I know I was sweating bullets when the day came to share the review in class.

Turns out (of course) that he had assigned the book on purpose - to see how many of us would take the plunge and assess it honestly. He told us that not all history is equal - and not all of it is good. It was our job, as historians, to figure that out. We couldn't rely on our teacher - or another reviewer - or the fact that we might know the author . . . or any other factor to tell us what to think about it.

That's how I feel about textbooks. There are some horrible examples that I wouldn't foist on anyone, but most are flawed in smaller ways. It is the job of the students', as historians, to make up their mind not just how they 'feel' about a book, but to determine, honestly and critically, why they feel that way. I'll help them - but I won't hand them an answer.