International History Textbook Project: US, Mexico and Canada

There has been general approval of WAIS' proposed international history textbook project. However, my recent memo on it was general, and serependity has made me give it a precise focus. By good chance, Bernardo Naranjo. formerly an official in the Mexican ministry of education, is finishing his Ph.D. in Stanford's School of Education. He will return to Mexico in the fall. He is passionately interested in the history of Mexico, as was evident in a long conversation we had two days ago. He is acutely aware of the history textbook problem. The Mexican version of the history of US-Mexican relations differs sharply from the US version. To complicate matters, there are two Mexican versions. One is the hitherto official one, in which anticlerical Benito Juárez is Mexico's great hero. Every year, the PRI staged a ceremony honoring him at his monument in Mexico City. For the Catholic conservatives, Juárez is a traitor who sold out to the United States. Under Fox, this viewpoint is being expressed more openly. Just yesterday the Bishop of Aguascalientes complained that the official textbooks are unfair.

Bernardo and I agreed that we should seek the cooperation of the Colegio de Mexico, the leading Mexican center for historical research. Ironically, it was founded by Spanish refugees from the Spanish Civil War, so the Spanish view would provide an interesting sidelight. A leading Mexican historian, Lorenzo Meyer, taught last year at Stanford. A few years ago I established relations between Stanford and the University of the Americas (UDLA) in Puebla, where Stanford now has a campus. I taught there years ago. Ernest Simmen, a senior faculty member, represented it at the WAIS conference on globalizations. Part of my plan was the establishment of a link between UDLA and the Hoover Institution, so it would be natural that Hoover should be the focal point at this end for the history textbook project, while the Puebla campus could be a center for research by Stanford scholars. Puebla is a traditionalist city, and the suburb of Cholula, where UDLA is located, has important clerical records. Since the main source of resentment is the Mexican War of 1846-48, the topic is in accord with Hoover's mission to study war, revolution and peace.

While we would begin with Mexico, we should also bring in Canada. There are two versions of Canadian history, the Anglo-Canadian and the French Canadian, both very different from the US version We would thus have a NAFTA of history textbooks. It would be a continuing project.. "Americans" would be surprised to learn how differently the neighbors to the south and north view their common history. It would be the academic equivalent of allowing Mexican trucks to circulate on American highways. All versions of history would be subject to the same reliability tests, and the competence of their drivers likewise.

I await your comments.

Ronald Hilton - 8/22/01