Echoing Events: The Perpetuation of National Narratives in English and Dutch History Textbooks, 1920-2010

Echoing Events questions the perpetuation, actualization, and canonization of national narratives in English and Dutch history textbooks, wide-reaching media that tendentially inspire a sense of meaning, memory, and thus also identity. The longitudinal study begins in 1920, when the League of Nations launched several initiatives to reduce strong nationalistic visions in textbooks, and ends in the new millennium with the revival of national narratives in both countries. The analysis shows how and why textbook authors have narrated different histories - which vary in terms of context, epoch, and place - as ‘echoing events’ by subjecting them to the same interpretive methods and by using the same combinations of historical analogies. This innovative and original study thus investigates the resistance of national narratives to change from a new angle.