technological and economic developments, could also be considered. Today’s
children may see the decline of the nation-state, for instance, because the
problem of the planetary commons may force planetary decision-making or
because growing tribalism may fragment many nations from within.^58 The
closing chapters of history textbooks might become inquiry exercises, directing
students toward facts and readings on both sides of such issues. Surely such an
approach would prepare students for their six decades of life after high school
better than today’s mindlessly upbeat textbook endings.
Thoughtfulness about such matters as the quality of life is often touted as a
goal of education in the humanities, but history textbooks sweep such topics
under the brightly colored rug of progress. Textbooks manifest no real worries
even about the environmental downside of our economic and scientific
institutions. Instead, they stress the fortunate adequacy of our government’s
reaction. Textbook authors seem much happier telling of the governmental
response—mainly the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency—than
discussing any continuing environmental problems. By far the most serious
treatment of our future in any of the new textbooks is this passage on the next to
last page of The American Pageant:
Environmental worries clouded the country’s future. Coal-fired
electrical generating plants helped form acid rain and probably
contributed to the greenhouse effect, an ominous warming of the
planet’s temperature. The unsolved problem of radioactive
waste disposal hampered the development of nuclear power
plants. The planet was being drained of oil....
By the early twenty-first century, the once-lonely cries for
alternative fuel sources had given way to mainstream public
fascination with solar power and windmills, methane fuel,
electric “hybrid” cars, and the pursuit of an affordable
hydrogen fuel cell. Energy conservation remained another
crucial but elusive strategy—much-heralded at the politician’s
rostrum, but too rarely embodied in public policy....Although hardly a wake-up call, at least those words raise the issues and do
not imply that they are nothing to worry about.
Unfortunately, on the next page—its last page—Pageant blandly reassures:
“In facing those challenges, the world’s oldest republic had an extraordinary