Whitewashing War: Historical Myth, Corporate Textbooks, and Possibilities for Democratic Education » (New Edition)

Whitewashing War explores perhaps the most critical issue social studies educators presently face: How do we teach our students about war? In this timely book, Christopher Leahey investigates how the political struggles over the social studies curriculum, the corporate domination of the textbook and testing industry, and the curricular constraints of the No Child Left Behind Act combine to stifle historical inquiry and deprive students of meaningful social studies instruction. Using the controversial Vietnam War as a case study, Leahey holds textbook narratives up to the light, illuminating how the adoption process, interpretive framework, and selection of evidence combine to transform the past into thinly veiled historical myths. By attending to questions traditionally ignored in history education, this dynamic book challenges educators to rethink their pedagogical approaches to military conflict, American and otherwise. It calls on teachers to develop students' critical sensibilities to ask questions, conduct research, evaluate evidence, and make meaning of the past, and provides classroom lessons for history educators and students to engage in rich, intellectual encounters with the historical record.

Foreword E. Wayne Ross ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 1

1 The Atomic Bomb, the Vietnam War, and the New American Militarism 9

Historical Memory and the Selective Tradition 12

The Vietnam War: "A Zone of Contested Meaning" 18

The Emerging U.S. Militarism and American Schools 22

Conclusion 27

2 Whose History Is It? A Close Look at the Corporate Textbook 29

The Corporatization of Schooling 31

The Corporate Textbook Production Process 33

The Textbook Adoption Process 36

The Connection Between Textbooks and Standards-Based Education 39

Conclusion 43

3 A Patriotic Rendering of the Gulf of Tonkin Crisis 45

The United States Prepares to Escalate the Vietnam War 46

The Gulf of Tonkin Crisis 52

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution 60

Conclusion 64

4 Whitewashing the Tet Offensive and the Failures of 1968 67

The Intelligence Failure 68

History Textbooks and the Intelligence Failure That Wasn't 73

Public Opinion and the Tet Offensive 75

How the Media "Sabotaged" the War 78

Tet and the Decline of American Military Morale 80

1968-The Year of the Massacres at My Lai and My Khe 85

Conclusion 91

5 Recovering Democratic History Education in an Era of Standardization 93

The Myth of War 94

Recovering Democratic Education 98

Beyond the Standardized Curriculum and Corporate Textbook 102

Conclusion 112

Appendix: Lessons on the Vietnam War 115

High School History Textbooks 123

References 125

Index 135

About the Author 146