Simone Lässig

Luigi Cajani

Maria Repoussi

This Handbook provides a systematic and analytical approach to the various dimensions of international, ethnic and domestic conflict over the uses of national history in education since the end of the Cold War. With an upsurge in political, social and cultural upheaval, particularly since the fall of state socialism in Europe, the importance of history textbooks and curricula as tools for influencing the outlooks of entire generations is thrown into sharp relief. Using case studies from 58 countries, this book explores how history education has had the potential to shape political allegiances and collective identities. The contributors highlight the key issues over which conflict has emerged – including the legacies of socialism and communism, war, dictatorships and genocide – issues which frequently point to tensions between adhering to and challenging the idea of a cohesive national identity and historical narrative. Global in scope, the Handbook will appeal to a diverse academic audience, including historians, political scientists, educationists, psychologists, sociologists and scholars working in the field of cultural and media studies.

The Palgrave Handbook of Conflict and History Education in the Post-Cold War Era

Andreas Weiß

In an era of rapidly increasing technological advances and international exchange, how did young people come to understand the world beyond their doorsteps? Focusing on Germany through the lens of the history of knowledge, this collection explores various media for children—from textbooks, adventure stories, and other literature to board games, museums, and cultural events—to probe what they aimed to teach young people about different cultures and world regions. These multifaceted contributions from specialists in historical, literary, and cultural studies delve into the ways that children absorbed, combined, and adapted notions of the world.

Foreign Cultures in Nineteenth-Century German Education and Entertainment

The World of Children

Volker Rolf Berghahn

While bookstore shelves around the world have never ceased to display best-selling "life-and-letters" biographies in prominent positions, the genre became less popular among academic historians during the Cold War decades. Their main concern then was with political and socioeconomic structures, institutions, and organizations, or--more recently--with the daily lives of ordinary people and small communities. The contributors to this volume--all well known senior historians--offer self-critical reflections on problems they encountered when writing biographies themselves. Some of them also deal with topics specific to Central Europe, such as the challenges of writing about the lives of both victims and perpetrators. Although the volume concentrates on European historiography, its strong methodological and conceptual focus will be of great interest to non-European historians wrestling with the old "structure-versus-agency" question in their own work. Contributors: Volker R. Berghahn, Hartmut Berghoff, Hilary Earl, Jan Eckel, Willem Frijhoff, Ian Kershaw, Simone Lässig, Karl Heinrich Pohl, John C. G. Röhl, Angelika Schaser, Joachim Radkau, Cornelia Rauh-Kühne, Mark Roseman, Christoph Strupp and Michael Wildt.

Central European Lives in International Historiography

Biography Between Structure and Agency

Thorsteinn Helgason

History texts studied by students in schools are an important field for drawing boundaries between nations, beliefs, ethnic groups and countries, sometimes causing disputes and protests. Even in the democratic and peaceful Nordic countries, history texts carry a message of authorized content knowledge and situated values. At the same time, they are meant to foster the critical mind, a skillfull eye and a tolerant spirit.In this volume, scholars from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden explore the question of “Us and the Others” in Nordic textbooks and educational media and focus on teachers’ opinions and use of history texts, partly based on a survey among Nordic history teachers in elementary and secondary schools. The questions dealt with are of national identity and multiculturalism, sameness and difference, content and pedagogy, skills and values, goals of history education and teachers’ situations. The scholars and teachers compare the educational and societal aims with the actual teaching materials at hand. The potentialities and limitations of textbooks and other educational media are investigated and discussed.

History Texts in Nordic Schools

Opening the Mind or Drawing Boundaries?

Jan Jansen

This timely study explores how societies have responded to mass inflows of refugees between 1945 and 2000.

Simone Lässig

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