The article explores the ways in which concerns of history, in terms of content, concepts and methodology, find space or do not find space within textbooks used for teaching languages. These may be more important as sites of "knowledge" than social science books, because the latter are often regarded as insignificant within the formal schooling system. How are great men (and women) constructed? What are regarded as "suitable" examples of historical achievements? How is change understood and explained? Are there spaces for escaping from a normative, increasingly homogeneous and homogenised understanding of the past dominated by the preoccupations of a visible, majoritarian middle class? These are some of the questions raised.