contested, ongoing issues. Unlike the War of 1812, or even World War II, there
can be no doubt about their relevance to the present. If the people listed as
authors of these textbooks never wrote these passages, what did they write?
And if they did not even read these passages, what did they read? Surely not
the small and not-so-small changes in interpretations that have swept through
the treatment of American Indians, for example, as a result of the new
scholarship of the past three decades.
It’s not just these two books that suffer from anonymous writing. Editors tell
me that recent chapters of American history textbooks are “typically” written
by freelance writers. Nor is it just the final chapters. Judith Conaway, who has
ghostwritten elementary-level textbooks in several fields, wrote, “It is
absolutely the standard practice in the textbook publishing industry to assign
ALL the writing to freelancers. Then you rent a name to go on the cover.” Since
Rise/ Triumph of the American Nation by Todd and Curti sold so well in the
1970s and 1980s, the publisher wanted to keep it in print. In 1994, having
finally become embarrassed by the fact that Todd was dead and Curti was in a
nursing home, Holt, Rinehart and Winston moved their names into the title and
engaged Paul Boyer to “write” what was now called Todd and Curti’s The
American Nation. Ironically, Boyer had become “Merle Curti Professor of
History” at Wisconsin. Asked if he substantially rewrote the book at that point,
Boyer would not say. Instead, he replied, “I really would like to know more of
your motive before discussing details of my career.” I identified myself as a
member of the Organization of American Historians and the American
Historical Association, explained that I was the author of Lies My Teacher
Told Me, and noted that Lies would be coming out in a new edition. Although
he had heard of Lies, he still would not reveal who had written Todd and
Curti’s The American Nation, referring me to an editor at Holt. In 1998 “his”
book came out again, now titled The American Nation. In 2003 it was again
renamed, to Holt American Nation, which does carry a certain honesty, since
the publisher, not the author, surely does write most of it. To the New York
Times, Boyer excused the practice with the quip, “Textbooks are hardly the
same as the Iliad or Beowulf.” Interviewed by the Times, Brooks Mather
Kelley said, “Frankly, many of these textbooks, unlike ours, were not written
by the authors who were once involved with them.” His use of “unlike ours”
was staggering, since I had just caught Boorstin and him red-handed.
Moreover, two days later his claim that he and Boorstin had written earlier
editions of their book was contradicted by James Goodwin, who revealed that