To Earl Kinmonth,

I find your claim that Japanese textbooks are not a major factor in what Japanese do or do not know about their own history is too strong to make, as it is based on only a small sample of students at the university you teach, whose performance of learning Japanese history at high schools was poor. Although I understand that some or even many Japanese high school students do not learn much from history textbooks, Japanese textbooks must be a major source of knowledge on Japanese history for at least some Japanese students. I myself spent three years at a Japanese high school and could learn quite a lot from Yamakawa's textbook, which is considered the most authoritative high school textbook on Japanese history. Although TV dramas (like NHK Taiga Dramas) could be a source of the knowledge on Japanese history, they are often factually not so correct and I would like to ask you what could be a major source of history education at school other than school textbooks. It is difficult to claim that relatively unbiased high school textbooks such as Yamakawa's cannot be a major source of history teaching only for the reason that some Japanese high school students do not learn Japanese history well. I think it is essential to have own experience of learning Japanese history at a Japanese high school in order to make such a strong claim.

Hiro Watanabe

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Dr. Hiroaki Richard Watanabe, D.Phil. Oxford, MA Yale, BA Tokyo Lecturer, School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield

http://www.shef.ac.uk/seas/staff/japanese/watanabe.html
http://www.wreac.org/people/WREAC-People/Core-Researche
rs/Watanabe%2C-Hiroaki-Richard/details