The Controversy Over The State Control Of History Textbooks

Nowadays, in Korea, there is a big controversy over the state control of history textbooks. The Korean government is trying to make a history textbook by themselves instead of private publishers. The opposition maintains that the state controlled textbook would reflect too much of the government’s opinion. In other words, they are worried that the government might change historical facts on their own through wrong interpretations. Historical facts are changeable because the values of the past and present are different, history contains the opinions of the writers, and misinformation effects can occur. To begin with, historical facts are changeable because the values of the past and present are different. These days, people value practicality and rationality. However, people in the past had other values in priority. Thus, the difference in values leads to differences in the analysis of history. For instance, history books in the past describe Prince Gwanghae as a tyrant. The people of Chosun followed Confucian

Usually, history is written by nations with power rather than nations that have little influence. Thus, it is likely that records include exaggerations about the actions of influential countries. For example, American history textbooks carry inaccurate information about The American Revolution. American history textbooks state that the war was skillfully fought by Americans, which led to their victory. However, in fact, the major factor of America’s victory was not the American army’s tactics. The British army was actually holding major portions of the colony, but the British government’s inability to fund their army led to Britain’s defeat. It shows that American history writers included their personal thoughts in recording and overstated the power of the American army. Therefore, historical facts can be altered because writers’ opinions are included in