Textbooks are an important tool for teaching and learning in high school geography classrooms. But what sort of picture do they provide of places that are different and distant from the countries in which they are published? This study explores this question through a concise analysis of a widely used American world geography textbook, with a focus on the ways the postsocialist transformation societies of Eastern Europe are understood. The results are contrasted with those from textbooks used in Switzerland and Spain. One of the main findings is that school geography textbooks reflect the social norms, values, and priorities of their places of publication.