History Books

What history books tell us about the past is not everything that happened, but what historians 1. They cannot put in everything: choices 2 to be made. Choices must similarly be made about which aspects of the past should be formally taught to the next generation in the shape of school history lessons. So, 3, when a national school curriculum for England and Wales was first discussed at the end of the 1980s, the history curriculum was the subject of considerable public and media 4. Politicians argued about it; people wrote letters to the press about it; the Prime Minister of the time, Margaret Thatcher, 5 in the debate. Let us think first about the question of content. There were two main camps on this issue – those who thought the history of Britain should take 6 of place, and those who favored what was referred to as 'world history'.