10 times governments have taken to the classroom to reshape the past, tweaking school textbooks so that generations grow up with a version of history that serves political ends. This phenomenon spans continents and decades, revealing how power can rewrite the narrative.
Why 10 Times Governments Rewrite History Through Textbooks
10 South Korea
In 2015 the South Korean National Institute of Korean History sparked a nationwide stir by overhauling the nation’s history textbooks. The revisions painted South Korea in a glowing light while casting Japan and North Korea in a starkly negative hue, especially intensifying criticism of North Korea’s guiding ideology of juche (“self‑reliance”).
Conservative voices, who championed the changes, warned that young South Koreans might come to admire juche despite North Korea’s heavy reliance on China for oil, food and other essentials. They also objected to existing textbooks that, in their view, blamed both North and South Korea for the Korean War even though the North initiated hostilities.
These conservatives further argued that the prevailing textbooks—believed to be authored by liberal scholars—frequently denigrated the military ruler Park Chung‑hee, who seized power in a 1961 coup. They claimed his achievements were downplayed while his regime’s crimes were highlighted, a point of irony given that Park’s daughter, Park Geun‑hye, was president when the textbook overhaul was proposed.
The conservative administration slated the new textbooks for rollout by March 2017, intending to outlaw all competing history books. However, after massive protests and accusations of state‑run brainwashing, the government retreated from the blanket ban.
9 Iraq
In 1973 Saddam Hussein ordered a sweeping rewrite of Iraqi school textbooks to glorify himself and the Ba’ath Party’s ideology. The new narratives claimed Hussein had rescued Arab lands from greedy Jews and portrayed the regime as a heroic defender of the region.
Later editions went further, falsely asserting that Iraq emerged victorious in both the 1980‑88 Iran‑Iraq War and the 1991 Gulf War against the United States—claims that starkly contradicted reality. These fabricated accounts raised alarm when the U.S.‑led coalition toppled Saddam’s regime in 2003.
Working closely with Iraqi educators, the U.S. government excised every mention of Saddam and the Ba’ath Party, stripping references to Iran, Kuwait, Jews, Kurds, Sunnis, Shias and the United States. The revised curriculum also softened the description of the 1991 Gulf conflict, rendering it “less controversial.”
8 India And Pakistan
Since their 1947 split from British rule, India and Pakistan have turned their rivalry into a classroom battlefield, each nation revising history textbooks to present a skewed version of shared events. The partition, which birthed the two states, is portrayed very differently on either side.
Pakistani textbooks assert that Muslim citizens broke away because Hindu leaders enslaved them after independence, whereas Indian textbooks claim the creation of Pakistan was a political maneuver, not a genuine demand. Both narratives paint the other side as the aggressor.
The textbooks also diverge on the massive communal violence that followed partition, which claimed 200,000‑500,000 lives. Pakistani books blame Hindu forces for the bloodshed; Indian texts suggest culpability on both sides.
When it comes to the 1965 war, each side boasts victory: Pakistani accounts declare that India begged for mercy and fled to the United Nations, while Indian narratives claim they nearly captured Lahore before the UN intervened. Later, during Bangladesh’s 1971 liberation, Pakistani books accuse India of meddling, whereas Indian textbooks portray Pakistan as the aggressor against Bangladesh’s freedom fighters.
7 Japan
Japan’s fraught ties with China and South Korea have fueled attempts to sanitize its wartime past. In 2017, a group called the “Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact” helped the government strip junior‑high textbooks of references to the 300,000 Chinese victims of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.
The revisions also erased mentions of the 400,000 Korean and Chinese women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military. Additionally, the new editions shifted blame for the Pearl Harbor attack onto the United States, arguing that American trade embargoes amounted to an unofficial declaration of war.
Critics argue the changes amount to a systematic white‑washing of Japan’s wartime atrocities. The society, already preparing a fourth edition at the time of the scandal, appears to be gradually excising controversial passages year after year.
Society director Hiromichi Moteki rejects accusations of historical tampering, insisting the textbooks are accurate and accusing neighboring nations of propagating falsehoods. He even claimed Japan “developed” Korea after the 1910 annexation and dismissed the Nanjing Massacre as “communist propaganda,” while denying the existence of “comfort women.”
6 China
In 1966 Chairman Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, proclaiming it a drive to realign China with pure communist ideals. In reality, it also served Mao’s personal bid to reclaim dominance within the Communist Party.
Over the next decade, Mao’s campaigns unleashed widespread protests, persecution and violence, ending only with his death in 1976. The episode remains a highly sensitive chapter in Chinese history, prompting the state to scrub references to it from official textbooks in 2018.
That year, an entire chapter on the Cultural Revolution vanished from the People’s Education Press‑issued textbook, replaced by a celebratory account of China’s development. All mentions of protests, mass arrests and state‑backed brutality were omitted, a change made easy by the government’s monopoly over textbook publishing.
5 Taiwan
In 2015 a wave of protests erupted across Taiwan after the administration attempted to rewrite high‑school history textbooks, a move many saw as part of a broader scheme to bring the island closer to mainland China.
The effort began in 2013 when a group of Taiwanese scholars received government approval to “fine‑tune” the island’s historical narrative. By February 2014 they announced revisions, promising to roll them out in schools by August 2015.
Among the changes, the Taiwan‑Zheng dynasty was relabeled as the “Chinese‑Taiwanese Ming Zheng dynasty,” implying continuity with the mainland’s Ming dynasty (1368‑1644). Historically, Taiwan never fell under Ming rule and only became part of China in 1683. Further edits altered the post‑1949 era under the Kuomintang, prompting high‑school students to protest and demand the abandonment of the project. A neutral professor warned that the revisions could rewrite roughly 60 % of Taiwan’s recorded past.
4 Afghanistan
In 2012 Afghanistan’s education ministry unveiled a new history curriculum that instantly erased four decades of the nation’s past, wiping out coverage of the communist era, the tumultuous coups of the 1970s and the 1979 Soviet invasion.
The overhaul also omitted details about the mujahideen’s anti‑Soviet resistance (later evolving into the Taliban), the brutal civil war among mujahideen factions after the Soviets left, and the subsequent U.S. invasion and occupation. Those events were reduced to a few terse lines.
Officials justified the edits as a means to unite a fractured society where tribal, clan and partisan loyalties often outweigh national identity. Critics, however, saw the changes as an attempt to curry favor with the Taliban and other armed groups. One commentator likened the effort to “hide the Sun with two fingers,” noting the removal of references to the U.S. occupation.
3 Turkey
In German schools that teach Turkish‑heritage students, the government‑approved textbook Türkçe ve Türk Kültürü (“Turkish and Turkish Culture”) sparked controversy in 2013. Critics argued the book reshaped history to favor Turkey, notably downplaying or omitting the 1915 Armenian genocide that claimed 1.5 million lives.
The text instead claimed that Armenians allied with the Allies—Russia, Britain and the United States—to dismantle the Ottoman Empire, and falsely asserted that Armenia voluntarily ceded its lands to Turkey after World War I.
Beyond historical distortion, the book was condemned for its overt nationalist tone, even featuring an oath urging students to “protect the young, honor the aged and love my country and motherland more than myself.” The publication was overseen by Turkey’s education ministry and distributed through its embassy.
2 Chile
In 2012 Chile’s education ministry stirred debate by revising history textbooks that covered General Augusto Pinochet’s rule. The new editions labeled his regime a “regime” rather than a “dictatorship.”
Left‑wing opposition parties claimed the linguistic shift was a deliberate effort to soften Pinochet’s legacy and placate the center‑right government that had benefitted from his tenure. Officials, however, maintained the change was simply a move toward less politically charged terminology.
1 Serbia
Slobodan Milošević ruled Serbia from 1989 until 1997 before becoming president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a state distinct from the former Yugoslavia that fragmented in the early 1990s. Serbia and Montenegro later formed a union that dissolved in 2006.
During his tenure, Milošević oversaw four wars—in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and Slovenia—and faced accusations of ethnic cleansing. Massive protests forced his ouster in October 2000.
Milošević personally directed revisions to Serbian school textbooks, filling them with propaganda that portrayed Serbia as a victim of foreign hatred. Ironically, after his fall, the new government excised every mention of Milošević from textbooks, even as the narratives still described events directly tied to his rule.
Modern Serbian textbooks now skirt around naming Milošević, describing “massive demonstrations in Belgrade on 5 October 2000” without specifying the target. State publishing director Radoslav Petrović explained that the past decade of history had been deliberately omitted, effectively erasing a turbulent chapter from official education.