ABSTRACT
This final chapter goes further in proposing a more general framework for approaches to textbook conflict mediation. It focuses on the transfer of knowledge through history education from one generation to the next, which is controlled not only by scholarly quality criteria and pedagogical standards, but also influenced by political or ideological agendas. To overcome narrow national/nationalistic approaches to the teaching of history, and the dangers that these entail, international collaborative textbook projects are underway in East Asia, even if these have undergone various changes since the 1990s in terms of structure and methods. This chapter discusses the attractions and limitations of various approaches to textbook projects and tries to identify factors that contributed to the success or failure of past projects. It examines the extent to which the rich experience gained in international textbook consultations in Europe after the Second World War might be applied to the East Asian context, while also considering the alternative of concentrating on and investing in larger projects, as Sun and Kawate propose in their chapters. This may help to inform the search for a truly multilateral, constructive approach to understanding crucial moments of Asian history in the twentieth century, while transcending the post-war European paradigm of reconciliation.
