The Second World War stands as the most devastating and destructive global conflict in human history. Morethan 60 nations representing 1.7 billion people or three quarters of the world's population were consumed byits horror. Not surprisingly, therefore, World War II stands as a landmark episode in history educationthroughout the world and its prominent place in school history textbooks is almost guaranteed. As this bookdemonstrates, however, the stories that nations choose to tell their young about World War II do not representa universally accepted """"truth"""" about events during the war. Rather, wartime narratives contained in schooltextbooks typically are selected to instil in the young a sense of national pride, common identify, and sharedcollective memory. To understand this process War, Nation, Memory describes and evaluates school historytextbooks from many nations deeply affected by World War II including China, France, Germany, Japan, USA, and the United Kingdom. It criticallyexamines the very different and complex perspectives offered in many nations and analyses the ways in which textbooks commonly serve asinstruments of socialisation and, in some cases, propaganda. Above all, War, Nation, Memory demonstrates that far from containing """"neutral""""knowledge, history textbooks prove fascinating cultural artefacts consciously shaped and legitimated by powerful ideological, cultural, and sociopoliticalforces dominant in the present. | War Nation Memory by Keith Crawford, Paperback | Indigo Chapters