Gilbert T. Sewall, American Textbook Council
2004
For this report from the American Textbook Council, Gilbert Sewall reviews six popular world history textbooks used in grade 6-12 classrooms across the country. The review is somewhat akin to Diane Ravitch's Consumer's Guide to High School History Textbooks in both purpose and findings. Like Ravitch and her reviewers (who reviewed both U.S. and world history texts), Sewall evaluates a half-dozen widely used world history textbooks and finds that "bad writing compounds the loss of narrative, instructional confusion abounds, presentism is universal, diversity takes a toll, and a disturbing view of the future prevails." The methodologies differed, however. Ravitch used multiple reviewers with expertise in world history to scrutinize individual books, while Sewall reviewed the books himself and used outside experts to vet his draft. Sewall also generalizes about the books, taking examples from some of them to support his general points. His basic "design" was to look at the books' handling of specific issues, events, or topics, which then became his organizing frame. Ravitch went book-by-book, with multiple reviewers reviewing and "grading" each book according to ten specific criteria. Both reports are worthwhile, however, and both confirm that history textbooks as a whole are boring and ridiculously inclusive yet lack a central story line or anything else that would make you want to turn the page. They also tend toward the politically correct and are fraught with errors and dubious judgments. To access Sewall's study, surf to http://www.historytextbooks.org/world.htm.
