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Virginia Textbooks and the Cold War in Latin America

Textbook Introduction

This digital humanities project analyzes eight history and social studies textbooks at the middle and high school levels in the state of Virginia. Most of these textbooks have been approved by the Virginia Department of Education to be used as resources for public schools all around the state. This section introduces each textbook as an opportunity to familiarize the audience with the types of material being considered for this project. The numbered codes correspond to how these textbooks are cataloged at the Learning Resource Center at the College of William and Mary’s School of Education. The textbooks will be referred to by their barcode entry throughout this project to differentiate between each textbook, especially considering that many textbooks have similar-sounding and looking titles. Click each of the textbooks below to learn more about them!

Are these textbooks representative of the experience inside the classroom?

A few disclaimers should be made about this project. Firstly, while the textbooks analyzed here often represent the most recent publications, many classrooms throughout Virginia continue to learn from outdated textbooks. It is extremely difficult to restock classrooms with the most recent versions of textbooks, so while these textbooks are taken mostly from the list of Virginia state-approved textbooks, these might not pertain to the lived experiences of teachers and their students in the classroom today. Regardless, this thought exercise of critiquing tertiary information is still valuable and holds many insights about the role of those who synthesize United States history. These same analytical frameworks can be applied to textbooks regardless of their year of publication, and many older textbooks most likely have even less information pertaining to the Cold War in Latin America. This project's critical lens and interpretation can be extrapolated to any history textbook.

An ideal project of this nature would have compared and contrasted evolving editions of the same textbook to argue whether or not textbooks are more seriously weighing the United States’ actions in Latin America during the Cold War. It also would have consulted Virginia middle and high school educators during every step of the process to ensure that this project is useful as a pedagogical tool. However, the restrictions posed by the COVID-19 global pandemic, ever-present in the conception and production of this digital humanities project, prohibited access to any textbooks outside of what the College of William and Mary’s School of Education owned. It also prevented me from walking into schools and introducing myself to teachers to share my project idea and receive feedback. Teachers have been extremely strained during this time, and to ask them to perform extra labor while creating online and socially-distanced lesson plans to bring their students up to speed on what they should be learning would not be fair.

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MIDDLE SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS

HIGH SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS

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America’s History, Eighth Edition, for the AP Course (#22759) This AP-curriculum textbook is used for students in high school, particularly students in Grades 10-12. “America’s History” was published by Bedford/St. Martin’s in 2014 to be used to prepare students for the 2015 AP History exam. Historical topics taught range from Colliding Worlds, 1450-1600 to Confronting Global and National Dilemmas, 1989 to the President. There are six chapters that pertain to the temporal range of the Cold War Era: “Cold War America, 1945-1963,” “Triumph of the Middle Class, 1945-1963,” “Walking into Freedom Land: The Civil Rights Movement, 1941-1973,” “Uncivil Wars: Liberal Crisis and Conservative Rebirth,” “The Search for Order in an Era of Limits, 1973-1980,” and “Conservative America in the Ascent, 1980-1991.”
Virginia and United States History (#22770) This textbook is the high school version of #22769 (United States History: 1865 to the Present) and serves students in Grades 9-12. It was published by Pearson in 2018 and spans from America’s Cultural Roots in the pre-American Revolution New World to America in the Twenty-First Century (2000-Today). There are five chapters that discuss events within the range of the Cold War Era: “Postwar America (1945-1960),” “Civil Rights and Reform in the 1960s (1945-1968),” “The Vietnam Era (1954-1975),” “An Era of Change (1960-1980),” and “America in the 1980s and 1990s (1980-1999).”
Hist4 Vol. 2: U.S. History since 1865 (#22764) This textbook, while not approved as an official Virginia textbook, instructs students in Grades 10-12. Published by 4LTR Press in 2016, this textbook ranges from Reconstruction, 1865-1877 to Globalization and Its Discontents. There are four chapters that fit within the Cold War Era framework: “Cold War America,” “The Sixties,” “The Age of Fracture: The 1970s,” and “Reagan’s America.”
American History (#22765) This high school history textbook, serving all Grades 9-12, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2010, with the most recent edition being published in 2018. Volumes 5 and 6, the two most recent volumes of history instruction, span from The Cold War (1944-1992) to The United States in the 21st century (1999-2015). There are six chapters that pertain to the Cold War Era: “The Cold War (1944-1992),” “The Postwar Boom (1945-1961),” “An Era of Social Change (1959-1980),” “Civil Rights (1953-2010),” “The Vietnam War (1959-1976),” and “Transitions and Conservatism (1967-1992).”
Virginia and United States History (#22766) “Virginia and United States History” serves Grades 9-12 with a specific specialty in Grade 11 US History and Geography courses. This textbook was published by McGraw Hill Education in 2018. Its chapters span from Colonizing America, Prehistory to 1754 to Obama and Beyond, 2008-Present. There are eight chapters that cover the temporal range of the Cold War Era: “The Cold War Begins, 1945-1960,” “Postwar America, 1945-1960,” “The New Frontier and the Great Society, 1960-1968,” “The Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968,” “The Vietnam War, 1954-1975,” “The Politics of Protest, 1960-1980,” “Politics and Economics, 1968-1980,” and “The Resurgence of Conservatism, 1980-1992.”
United States History: Civil War to the Present (#22739) This textbook targets students in seventh grade in Virginia. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2018, this textbook spans from the Civil War to the twenty-first century up through 2015. Within this textbook, there are four chapters that pertain to the years of the Cold War Era: “The Cold War 1945-1960,” “The Vietnam War Years 1960-1975,” “The Civil Rights Movement 1950-1975,” and “Searching for Order 1968-2000.”
United States History: 1865 to the Present (#22769) This middle school textbook, while appropriate for Grades 6-8, is meant to instruct seventh graders. Pearson published this Virginia-edition textbook in 2018. Its information ranges from The Civil War (1860-1865) to Meeting New Challenges (1975-Present). There are two chapters that cover events within the Cold War Era timeframe: “Postwar America (1945-1975)” and “A Global Superpower Facing Change (1975-2000).”
Discovering Our Past: A History of the United States, Modern Times (#22740) “Discovering Our Past: A History of the United States, Modern Times” is used to instruct seventh graders in Virginia. McGraw Hill Education published this textbook in 2018. This textbook covers events from the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War to New Challenges through the twenty-first century. There are four chapters that cover events during the Cold War Era: “The Cold War Era,” “The Civil Rights Era,” “The Vietnam Era,” and “A Troubled Nation.”