Introduction: Old canons and new histories

Over the past decades many politicians and pundits have blamed new trends in historical research and teaching for the weakening of national identity in the Western world. In the United States, Australia and Canada, books with titles such as Impostors in the Temple, The Killing of History and Who Killed Canadian History sounded a cultural alarm.1 The ‘old’ canon of history, they argued, validated national identity and deepened collective memory. Their complaint about the ʼnew’ history was that it deconstructed the canon and highlighted the contentious nature of collective memory, leaving disorientation and a divided community in its wake. In the US, the debate on the National History Standards turned into a veritable culture war, involving the mass media and national politicians. In most European countries, discussions were less acrimonious, but the opposing arguments about what kind of history should be taught, or not taught, in schools and universities were similar. Apart from the specific content of the history curriculum the debates touched on other issues, in particular teaching methods. Here, the critics complained about an excessive emphasis on learning skills at the expense of ‘knowing history’. They also took exception to the proliferation of thematic approaches that neglected the ‘long chronologies’ of history, in particular national chronology.

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