The Lies That Bind Us

Nationalism and History Textbooks

In The Lies That Bind Us, Ahsan I. Butt explores how history textbooks become battlegrounds of national belonging, borders, and memory.

History education has always sparked fierce debate. Disagreements erupt not just over what to include but whose version to tell – how proud or shameful episodes are portrayed; who bears responsibility; and which voices are heard or silenced. These fights are typically domestic, but when a state's past involves international conflict, the stakes – and the critics – multiply.

Butt delves into such flashpoints in his analysis of the politics of history textbooks. He first disaggregates national identity into three dimensions: boundaries of membership, space, and time. He then considers how each dimension is addressed in narratives of race and immigration across US history textbooks; territorial conflicts in Argentinean and Chilean textbooks; and finally, imperial legacies and independence struggles in Indian and Pakistani textbooks. As book bans and curriculum wars roil classrooms worldwide, The Lies That Bind Us exposes the varieties of nationalism driving textbook battles and how they shape not just which histories students learn but what kind of nation a country becomes.

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