Learning History and Iris Chang
Here is the text of a letter on which I would appreciate your comments. Ronald
November 17, 2004
Dr. Bruce Cole, Chairman
National Endowment for the Humanities
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC
Dear Dr. Cole:
I listened with great interest to your address at the National Press Club on the National Digital Education Project sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. You rightly deplored the ignorance of history at all levels of our educational system, and you stressed the positive value of knowing history. You mentioned the potential international dimension of this project. However, knowledge if history is a two-edged sword. Every country's version of history is guilty of commission and omission. American history books describe events from the American viewpoint, and references to Canada and Mexico, simply to mention our two neighbors, usually omit any reference to their version of the same events. Yet these events are a cause of the strong anti-American feeling in Mexico and even in Canada. The problem becomes more acute in for example the conflicting versions of history in Israel and the Arab countries, It becomes even more complex when we bring in the Turkish and Iranian viewpoints as expressed in history textbooks. International hatreds derive from events, often long past, which have remained in the nation's collective memory. History textbooks are a potent force in this process. It is difficult to remember past history without hoping for revenge for past humiliations.
The World Association of International Studies (WAIS) has an ongoing project, "Learning History", to study this phenomenon. It has this month taken on an especially tragic aspect with the suicide of Iris Chang, author of a well-known book on "the Rape of Nanking". Japanese textbooks choose to ignore this awful episode, thereby causing great resentment among the Chinese. The tension resulting from this was a factor in the suicide of Iris Chang,
Would the National Endowment have any interest in the "Learning History" project? If so, we would like to know who the appropriate officer is. WAIS, which has a number of historians among its members, would work in cooperation with the Hoover Library, where there is already an Iris Chang collection and an international textbook collection. I attach some postings by WAIS members on the death of Iris Chang.
Siegfried Ramler comments on my letter to Bruce Cole of the National Endowment for the Humanities about our "Learning History" project. I entirely agree with Siegfried. While history and historians have an important role to play, the project had wider dimensions. I view myself as a culture historian. People with different specializations should take part. Even military specialists should be involved. Almost simultaneously Putin announces that Russia has a nuclear bomb that no one else possesses and the US launches an unmanned aircraft which can fly at 7 times to speed of sound. Each side is trying to scare the other. There should be a study of blinking in history. Siegfried says:
Regarding your good letter to Bruce Cole on versions of history, as transmitted (or not transmitted ) by national schools, let me point out that history texts are just one aspect, though an important one, of the dangers of bias impacting the collective memory of a nation. At issue, on a deeper level, is the understanding and teaching of the evolution of civilizations and the development of sensitivity to commonalities and differences in the manifestation of cultures. The interconnected world of the 21st century calls for a paradigm shift in education which aims at the most crucial need facing mankind: learning to live together. To be sure, textbooks are essential tools for teachers, but underlying any tool used in educational practice must be a conceptual framework in which teaching takes place, as well as a setting which reflects a global perspective to teaching and learning. In an interconnected world, virtually every field of study, whether in the social or natural sciences, in the arts or in technology, in vocations or in recreation, has international dimensions.
When history teaching and history texts are focused primarily on one's own country, placing other nations and societies into the periphery, the consequence, whether or not intended, is a deficient understanding of global linkages impacting the past, present and future.
RH: This is why our project is named "Learning History", which covers a multitude of learning processes.
Elena Danielson asked me to clarify the intent of my letter to the National Endowment for the Humanities, so I added this paragraph, which met with her approval:
This is an exploratory letter. It is not a request for funds. The project has a global scope with great implications for the peace of the world. There should be ample discussion before a serious plan of action is formulated. The National Endowment for the Humanities seemed to me to be the obvious focal point for such a discussion. As for the implementation of a major project, I am 93 and it would be left to younger scholars, of whom there are a number in WAIS. They could join whatever larger group emerges to direct the project.
Dick Payne writes: For an excellent account of the historiography of the Nanjing Incident, see the article by David Askew entitled 'The Nanjing Incident. Recent Research and Trends', which can be found on the web at www.japanesestudies.org.uk/articles/Askew.html.
I also had sent a note and copy of a photograph of Che Guevara, this one by the photographer René Burri, who died in October, and it too was considered an icon. However it bounced back to me. Since the WAIS site has now gone one to other topics, it doesn't seem worthwhile re-sending it.
RH: My Stanford e-mail box was full and attempts to empty it failed, but my new address does not have that problem. WAIS does not simply drop topics. I apologize to those whose e-mails had the door slammed in their face.
Your comments are invited. Read the home page of the World Association of International Studies (WAIS) by simply double-clicking on: http://wais.stanford.edu Mail to Ronald Hilton, Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA 94305-6010. Please inform us of any change of e-mail address.