ABSTRACT
Representations of the national territory play a major role in definitions of national identity. Establishing the existence of authentic connections between the national community and the territory helps legitimize the political sovereignty of the nation-state. This chapter shows how French and U.S. textbooks anchor national identity in the territory. Both countries’ history books draw on founding myths that legitimize the nation-state’s existence through teleological accounts of ties to the land. Their approaches to teaching geography differ, however, with French books once again approaching the subject more as an academic discipline while U.S. books treat the landscape as another national symbol.
