Based on the potential of educational materials to forge and shape the collective memory, this article analyses the representations of the Francoist Hunger Years (1939-1952) in recent history textbooks for secondary schools by a wide range of publishers. The main thesis of the paper is that while there are textbooks that provide a complex…

In September 1977, all of France's middle schools implemented the so-called "collège unique" reform in the seventh year, i.e. the elimination of tracking (or streaming) and the mixing of all pupils and teachers for the first year of secondary education. This article examines the genesis and implementation of this reform from the point of…

The author reviews historical attempts--mostly by European thinkers--to characterize modernity and its relationship to play. He discusses ideas from Friederich Schiller to Brian Sutton-Smith, all to set the ground for a theory of play in the modern world. Emphasizing the ideas of Max Weber--in particular his theory of rationalization and its…

The Holocaust was one of the most significant events of contemporary history and still has great relevance for current times. This paper analyses the portrayal of the Holocaust in secondary education history textbooks in Spain. As this type of research has grown in the international arena, the need to review critically this event in Spanish…

This essay offers an account of the beginnings of modern schooling. The Latin word "schola" began to mean "school" in the ninth century. But early practices associated with this newly distinct social phenomenon took several centuries to become codified, institutionalized and recognized. Until that happened, school was a label…

This article sketches a post-Occidental interpretation of the historical/conceptual relationships between modern western education and European civilizational identity formation. Modern western education will be interpreted as a modern/colonial institution that emerged along with the sixteenth-century responses to the questions provoked by the…

Western historians working in the first half of the twentieth century established a scheme for writing design history that continues to influence the global histories of today. The historians Douglas McMurtrie, Lucien Febvre, Henri-Jean Martin and Lawrence Wroth believed that the modern history of visual communication began with the advent and…

Many students assume that history has nothing to do with them and therefore is a waste of their time, so finding a way to get involuntary history students truly involved in a topic is always the most challenging aspect of teaching it. As passive listeners they will remember little; as active participants they will remember more and--in at least a…

Richard Wagner was probably the most influential musician of the 19th century. However, his image as an alleged intellectual-spiritual forerunner of national socialism through his music and prose works fosters aversion among critics. Whether Wagner's complicacy of art and ideology has had any lasting consequence on his reputation is discussed. (RM)

The views of the French political leader Marcel Deat are examined to determine whether he was a fascist by conviction or a fascist by the force of circumstances created by World War II. It is shown that by 1934 Deat had clearly adopted a stance best described as national socialist. (RM)

Through a series of events in German-controlled Alsace, e.g., a Prussian military commander insulted Alsatian civilians and the French flag, the fundamental question of civilian-military relations in both Alsace-Lorraine and Germany itself was brought to the fore. How the situation was handled is discussed. (RM)

Presents an unorthodox account of the onset of World War I based on speculations about alternative outcomes. Considers reasons that historians are reluctant to imagine counter-factuals and argues that this lack of imagination may cause them to overlook some of the historical causes they seek. (DMM)

Of all the frontier forces in the modern world, the French Foreign Legion is perhaps the most widely known and yet the least understood. The realities and mystique of the Legion from the time it was formed in 1831 to the present are discussed. (RM)

Considers Arendt's argument that Eichmann was an example of how Nazi totalitarianism changed modern concepts of evil. Concludes that an amoral bureaucracy, whose goals transcended personal judgment, involvement, or responsibility, is part of the social environment which still constitutes a threat today. (AM)

The economic difficulties of Great Britain in the post World War II world are discussed. Historical and cultural factors are examined. (RM)