History in the Making by Kyle Ward (The New Press, 2006) is a nonfiction volume of curated and categorized passages from a variety of high school American history textbooks, from the early days until 1999, showing the ways various stories from history have been told to students over the years. The lengthy subtitle of the book is “An absorbing look at how American history has changed in the telling over the last 200 years.” Although even selecting which passages and subjects to research in the historical student textbooks shows an inherent bias toward the editor’s own preferred historicity, the book still provided interesting insights into the various perspectives given to American history.
The textbook excerpts are separated into parts based on history (Exploration and Colonization; The American Revolution; The New Nation; The Civil War Era; Industrialism, Imperialism, and War; The Great Depression and World War II; The Cold War and Postwar America; and The Vietnam Era). Each part then has 6-9 different chapters focusing on a specific issue as addressed in the researched textbooks. These more specific issues range from very specific (such as Chapter 7, New Sweden) to general (such as Chapter 22, Slavery in America). Each chapter has a 1-3 paragraph summary of the findings of historicity, then each textbook excerpt is headed by the year of publication and then an italicized additional summary of the context for the excerpt. Some excerpts were just one paragraph and others were multiple pages. Some subjects had 10 excerpts from books from 1779 to 1999 and others (especially the newer subjects, like Vietnam) had just 3 excerpts.
I love studying history. As a teacher and parent, I found this book insightful into how textbooks vary in covering what seems to be basics of American history. Because of the limited nature of Kyle Ward’s book, many topics are inevitably left out. In addition, we, as reader, must trust his interpretations and declarations of what textbooks for high schoolers cover. What do the other textbooks in the interim years stay on such-and-such? He has intentionally left out books that do not show the changes he discusses, so we cannot know how accurate his conclusions are.
Nevertheless, even remembering these limitations, I found History in the Making to be valuable. The various tones of the textbooks, including the assertions of authority and truth within the texts, give a teacher a stark reminder that history is always told through a unique perspective in every era. The quest to determine ultimate truth is ongoing, and as we consider the changing nature of our textbooks, it’s probably best to look at multiple sources for contrasting views and opinions as we teach the rising generation. No one textbook will contain the ultimate, true portrayal of what happened in American history.
