Reformation of History in Frances Fitzgerald's Textbook, America Revised: A History of Schoolbooks

The reform of history textbook has always been a growing concern. In her “America Revised: A History of Schoolbooks in the twentieth century,” Frances Fitzgerald reveals that history books are updated but modified substantially to comply with the national interest at the time. Fitzgerald’s argument is slightly biased and some pieces of evidence are not sufficient or might even be far-fetched. However, she successfully conveys her argument through comprehensively contrasting the current history books for children with histories of the fifties using various rhetorical devices and plentiful examples.

Overall, her argument is thorough and persuasive except sort of one-sided and not entirely unbiased. Throughout the article, she only investigates the negative changes of the history books but ignores the positive ones. For instance, She points out that the current history books are “a babble of voices and a welter of events” (22), and “their sophisticated modern design contains some irony” (22). Is there any positive change? It would be more fair and comprehensive to evaluate the effect of the changes of the current history books by considering both sides of its changes. || Also, for younger readers, they may know nothing about the histories of the fifties. Her perspectives about the histories of the fifties are just her personal opinions. It is possible that she exaggerates Christian ideology of the histories of the fifties to make a more striking contrast. To strengthen her argument, she needs to add positive changes of the history books and analyze how these changes affect the whole view of the current books.

Besides, some pieces of evidences she uses to support her argument seem not sufficient or might even be far-fetched. Acco...

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...’ (21). These rhetoric questions force readers to stand on her side and to ponder in her direction. She compares the contents of the twentieth-century chapters in current books to ‘a modern-art museum’ (22), which ironically and humorously criticizes the fancy design of the current books. She also directly quotes the original texts to show the changes of current books such as a paragraph from Sellers’ book ‘As It Happened’.

To conclude, even though I disagree with the way Fitzgerald uses some pieces of her evidence, her argument is comprehensive and persuasive. She excellently used various rhetorical devices and plentiful evidence.

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, Frances. “America Revised.” Inquiry: Questioning, Reading, Writing. Eds. Lynn Z. Bloom, Edward M. White with Shane Borrowman. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004. 587-594. Print.