The Cold War in the Classroom

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxx

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2. Introduction: The Cold War in the Classroom International Perspectives on Textbooks and Memory Practices

   • Barbara Christophe

   Pages 1-11Open Access

3. Textbook Memories

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13

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   2. Textbook Memories of the Cold War: Introduction to Part One

      • Barbara Christophe

      Pages 15-22Open Access

   3. Manufacturing Coherence: How American Textbooks Incorporate Diverse Perspectives on the Origins of the Cold War

      • Eva Fischer

      Pages 23-49Open Access

   4. Between Radical Shifts and Persistent Uncertainties: The Cold War in Russian History Textbooks

      • Alexander Khodnev

      Pages 51-74Open Access

   5. The Emergence of a Multipolar World: Decentring the Cold War in Chinese History Textbooks

      • Lisa Dyson

      Pages 75-105Open Access

   6. Americans and Russians as Representatives of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’: Contemporary Swedish School History Textbooks and their Portrayals of the Central Characters of the Cold War

      • Anders Persson

      Pages 107-135Open Access

   7. Images and Imaginings of the Cold War – with a Focus on the Swiss View

      • Markus Furrer

      Pages 137-157Open Access

   8. Between Non-human and Individual Agents: The Attribution of Agency in Chapters on the Cold War in Flemish History Textbooks

      • Karel Van Nieuwenhuyse

      Pages 159-181Open Access

   9. The Cold War and the Polish Question

      • Joanna Wojdon

      Pages 183-206Open Access

   10. The Cold War in South African History Textbooks

       • Linda Chisholm, David Fig

       Pages 207-220Open Access

   11. Dictatorship and the Cold War in Official Chilean History Textbooks

       • Teresa Oteíza, Claudia Castro

       Pages 221-247Open Access

4. Teachers’ Memories

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 249-249

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   2. Teachers’ Memories and the Cold War: Introduction to Part II

      • Robert Thorp, Barbara Christophe

      Pages 251-257Open Access

   3. Ambivalence and the Illusion of Hegemony

      • Barbara Christophe

      Pages 259-287Open Access

   4. 1968 in German-speaking Switzerland: Controversies and Interpretations

      • Nadine Ritzer

      Pages 289-315Open Access

   5. Reconciling Opposing Discourses: Narrating and Teaching the Cold War in an East-German Classroom

      • Eva Fischer

      Pages 317-344Open Access

5. Memory Practices in the Classroom

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 345-345

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   2. Introduction to Part Three: Memory Practices in the Classroom

      • Peter Gautschi, Barbara Christophe, Robert Thorp

      Pages 347-359Open Access

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.

This book explores how the socially disputed period of the Cold War is remembered in today’s history classroom. Applying a diverse set of methodological strategies, the authors map the dividing lines in and between memory cultures across the globe, paying special attention to the impact the crisis-driven age of our present has on images of the past. Authors analysing educational media point to ambivalence, vagueness and contradictions in textbook narratives understood to be echoes of societal and academic controversies. Others focus on teachers and the history classroom, showing how unresolved political issues create tensions in history education. They render visible how teachers struggle to handle these challenges by pretending that what they do is ‘just history’. The contributions to this book unveil how teachers, backgrounding the political inherent in all memory practices, often nourish the illusion that the history in which they are engaged is all about addressing the past with a reflexive and disciplined approach.

• Cold War in the Classroom
• Educational Media and the Cold War
• The Cold War in Memory
• Teaching History
• Teaching the Cold War

• Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, Member of the Leibniz Association, Brunswick, Germany

  Barbara Christophe

• Institute for History Education and Memory Cultures, University of Teacher Education Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland

  Peter Gautschi

• University of Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden

  Robert Thorp

• The University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia

  Robert Thorp

Barbara Christophe is Senior Researcher at the Georg Eckert Institute, Germany and is Deputy Head of the Media Transformation department.


Peter Gautschi is the Head of the Lucerne Institute of History Education and Memory Cultures at the University of Teacher Education Lucerne, Switzerland.


Robert Thorp is Senior Lecturer of Education at Stockholm University, Sweden, and Lecturer of Education at The University of Newcastle in Australia.