ABSTRACT
Since their invention two centuries ago, history textbooks-like historical museums, public monuments, statues of national heroes, national anthems and military cemeteries-have been fashioned to nurture a sense of national identity. A popular 1830 textbook for students in American common schools proclaimed that the study of history “nourishes love of country, and directs to the best means of its improvement; it illustrates equally the blessings of political union, and the miseries of faction; the danger . . . of anarchy and the . . . debasing influence of despotic power.” By articulating a particular view of national identity-a “republican” one in the quoted passage-the textbook aims at turning the young into “good citizens” (or “national subjects” to use the language of cultural studies) by instilling values or lessons “learned” from the study of an often idealized past.
