Designing history in East Asian textbooks : identity politics and transnational aspirations / edited by Gotelind Müller.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The predicament of compiling textbooks on the history of East Asia / Sun Ge -- Teaching "the others' history" in Chinese schools : the state, cultural asymmetries, and shifting images of Europe (1900 to today) / Gotelind Müller -- The construction of "self" and western and Asian "others" in contemporary Japanese civics and ethics textbooks / Klaus Vollmer -- Learning to love the motherland : "national education" in post-retrocession Hong Kong / Edward Vickers -- Telling histories of an island nation : the academics and politics of history textbooks in contemporary Taiwan / Lungchih Chang -- New curriculum reform and history textbook compilation in contemporary China / Li Fan -- The "others" in Chinese history textbooks : with a focus on the relationship between China and Japan / Su Zhiliang -- Rewriting history in a textbook in contemporary Japan / Miyake Akimasa -- The "Tokyo trial view of history" and its revision in contemporary Japan/East Asia / Steffi Richter -- History conflicts and dialogues between Korea and Japan : with a focus on the current issue concerning Japanese history textbooks / Chung Jae-jeong -- Historical reconciliation between Germany and Poland as seen from a Japanese perspective : the thoughts of a Japanese historian and their development / Kawate Keiichi -- Mediating textbook conflicts / Falk Pingel.

This book analyses the efforts throughout East Asia to deploy education for purposes of political socialization, and in particular in order to shape notions of identity. The chapters also examine the trend of 'common textbook initiatives', which have recently emerged in East Asia with the aim of helping to defuse tensions arguably fuelled by existing practices of mutual (mis)representation. These are analysed in relation to the East Asian political context, and compared with previous and ongoing endeavours in other parts of the world, particularly Europe, which have been keenly observed by East Asian practitioners. Written by a group of international education experts, chapters discuss the enduring focus on the role of curricula in inculcating homogenous visions of the national self, and indeed homogenized visions of significant 'others'. Including contributions from scholars and curriculum developers involved personally in the writing of national and multi-national history textbooks this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Asian education, Asian history and comparative education studies.