International Scholars’ Appeal
Concerning the 2002-Edition Japanese History Textbooks
(July 2001)
We the undersigned support the efforts of Japanese historians, educators, and citizens to ensure that textbooks are consistent with values of peace, justice, and truth. We join them in protesting the recent decision of the Japanese Ministry of Education and Science to approve a new textbook that tramples on these values.
We refer to Nishio Kanji et al., Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho, a new junior high history textbook written by a group of right-wing nationalists and published by Fusosha.
Although historians and educators inside and outside Japan raised important questions about the text, it passed Japanese government textbook screening in early Spring 2001 and is now approved for use in 2002 in junior high schools.
History textbooks and instruction are the primary means whereby younger generations learn about their past. Indeed, for many people, school textbooks provide the most systematic introduction to the past that they will ever receive. Textbooks should, therefore, provide students with truthful accounts that reflect the finest achievements of historical research. This is all the more important in Japan, since school textbooks bear a government imprimatur because of Japan’s system of government screening.
History textbooks are not merely the repository of society’s understanding of the past; they also convey what we as a society choose to remember and represent as the core of civic knowledge. They convey to students ideas about local, national, and global citizenship, and thereby help to shape our future. It is precisely because of this characteristic of textbooks that their content has been so fiercely contested, particularly during the last half century and more in Japan as elsewhere.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, we recognize the mistakes committed by the human race in the last century, including the atrocities associated with colonialism and war. Reconciliation and reorientation to build a new global community in which humanity prevails are our urgent tasks. It is, therefore, imperative that school textbooks present knowledge and values that contribute to making our world more democratic, peaceful, and just.
The new Japanese history textbook Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho is unfit as a teaching tool because it negates both the truth about Japan’s record in colonialism and war and the values that will contribute to a just and peaceful Pacific and world community. Its chauvinistic history, in overemphasizing what its authors call the “bright side” of the nation and disregarding the “dark side,” fundamentally distorts the history of Japan and
Asia. Here we call attention to only the most egregious examples (see the information sheet for additional details).

 The textbook legitimizes the Japanese colonization of Korea in terms of the need to protect Japanese security and economic interests. It provides little discussion of
Japan’s colonial policies of repression and exploitation of Koreans and
Taiwanese, who experienced decades of colonial rule.
 It describes the Japanese invasion of China and other Asian countries in the 1930s and 1940s as an “extension of the battle line” or “advance,” eschewing the term
“aggression.” Ignoring the heavy toll in human lives suffered by the victims of nations that Japan invaded during the “Greater East Asian War” and the Japanese subjugation of Asian people, it strongly suggests that the war was aimed at the liberation of Asian nations from (western) colonization.
 It details war atrocities committed by the Allied forces and Nazi Germany, while virtually ignoring Japan’s own (e.g., the cruel experiments of the biological warfare unit 731 and the massacre of the Chinese population in Singapore). It refers to the Nanjing Massacre but minimizes its importance by referring to “many points of doubt” about the event.
 It ignores completely the enslavement of tens of thousands of “comfort women” as sexual slaves of the Japanese military.
All nations have disgraceful chapters in their histories. Teaching history today requires comparative and international perspectives that help students examine and reflect on such problems. We should not forget painful events but learn from them, because such lessons are the first step toward reconciliation. Like our colleagues in Japan, we too face important historical issues that we have yet to deal with effectively in our textbooks and in public discourse. But we join them now in expressing concern about the ideological orientation of this textbook and the effects it will have both in (mis)educating students and poisoning the relationship between Japan and neighboring countries that experienced
Japanese invasion and rule.
Signatures (As of June 29)
Name Position Discipline Institution Location/Country
Richard J. Altenbaugh, Professor, Education, Slippery Rock University, USA
Michael W. Apple, Professor, Education, University of Wisconsin at Madison, USA
Tim Beal, Senior Lecturer, Asian Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, New
Zealand
Pamela Benson, Lecturer, Education, Massey University, New Zealand
Lucien Bianco, Professor Emeritus, History, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences
Sociales, Paris, France
Kathleen Blee, Professor, Sociology/Women’s Studies, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Roger W. Bowen, President and Professor, State University of New York at New Paltz,
USA
Jim Carl, Associate Professor, Education, Cleveland State University, USA

Peter Cave, Lecturer, Japanese Studies/Anthropology, University of Hong Kong, Hong
Kong SAR, China
Catherine Cornbleth, Professor, Education, State University of New York at Buffalo,
USA
Bruce Cumings, Professor, History, University of Chicago, USA
Mary Jane Curry, Research Fellow, Education, Open University, UK
Alexis Dudden, Assistant Professor, History, Connecticut College in New London, USA
Arthur Power Dudden, Professor Emeritus, History, Bryn Mawr College, USA
Joshua A. Fogel, Professor, History, University of California at Santa Barbara, USA
Eri Fujieda, Lecturer, Sociology/Women’s Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign, USA
Takashi Fujitani, Associate Professor, History, University of California at San Diego,
USA
Timothy S. George, Assistant Professor, Japanese History, University of Rhode Island,
USA
Andrew Gordon, Professor, Japanese History, Harvard University, USA
Laura Hein, Associate Professor, Japanese History, Northwestern University, USA
David Ip, Associate Professor, Sociology, University of Queensland, Australia
Chalmers Johnson, President, Japan Policy Research Institute, USA
Patricia Maringi G. Johnston, Senior Lecturer, Maori Education, Massey University, New
Zealand.
Peter J. Katzenstein, Professor, Cornell University, USA
Victor Koschmann, Professor, History, Cornell University, USA
Lesieli Kupu MacIntyre, Lecturer, Education, Massey University, USA
Jan McPherson, Senior Lecture, Maori Education, Massey University, New Zealand
Mark Lincicome, Associate Professor, History, College of the Holy Cross, USA
Allan Luke, Professor, Education, University of Queensland, Australia
Richard H. Minear, Professor, Japanese History, University of Massachusetts at Amherst,
USA
Masao Miyoshi, Professor, Comparative Literature, University of California at San
Diego, USA
Yoshiko Nozaki, Lecturer, Education, Massey University, New Zealand
Roger Openshaw, Associate Professor, Education, Massey University, New Zealand
Louis G. Perez, Professor, Education/History, Illinois State University at Normal, USA
Judith Perkins, Dissertator, Education, University of Wisconsin at Madison, USA
Kenneth Pomeranz, Professor, University of California at Irvine, USA
Marleigh Grayer Ryan, Professor Emerita, Japanese, State University of New York at
New Paltz, USA
Andre Schmid, Associate Professor, Korean History, University of Toronto, Canada
Mark Selden, Professor, History, State University of New York at Binghamton, USA
Michael J. Shapiro, Professor, Political Science, University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
Ann Sherif, Associate Professor, Japanese Language & Literature, Oberlin College, USA
Michael Garbutcheon Singh, Professor, Education, Royal Melbourne Institute of
Technology, Australia
Yoshio Sugimoto, Profesor, Sociology, La Trobe University, Australia

E. Patricia Tsurumi, Professor Emerita, History, University of Victoria, Canada
France Winddance Twine, Associate Professor, Sociology/Women’s Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara, USA
Hine Waitere-Ang, Lecturer, Maori Education, Massey University, New Zealand
Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar, Yale University, USA
Cameron White, Associate Professor, Education, University of Huston, USA
Ting-Hong Wong, Professor, Education, Nan Hua University, Taiwan
Lisa Yoneyama, Associate Professor, Literature, University of California at San Diego,
USA
Zarni, Founder-Director, Education, Free Burma Coalition & Institute for Community and Institutional Development, Burma
Lew Zipin, Lecturer, Education, University of Canberra, Australia