ABSTRACT
The intention in this and the following chapter is to shift from the previous contextual considerations and to investigate the massive changes in the content and pedagogy of geography, history and, in the American case particularly, social studies textbooks, which have taken place over the last two centuries. Offering so wide a coverage of historical and comparative material carries the penalty of having to contend with a voluminous literature. There is a self-evident need for selection. The strategy adopted here has been to identify a relatively limited number of authors whose texts can be regarded in some significant way as characteristic of their time, or in other respects exemplify some pertinent and/or intriguing feature or principle. While both in this and the following chapter particular texts have been examined, detailed quotation from them will be left to the analysis of process in Chapter 6. To avoid unnecessary overlap, the content coverage in this chapter focuses more on its academic back-cloth, leaving detail relating more pertinently to its mission elements to Chapters 7 and 8.
