Unit 7

RewritingAmerican History

FrancesFitzGerald

 

Teaching Tips

 

“RewritingAmerican History” is an exposition. Fitzgerald is making an argument, so it isimportant for the students to find out 1) what the author’s arguments are; 2) on whatevidence the authorbases her arguments; 3) how the author makes these arguments. Afterunderstanding the author’s arguments, the students can then evaluate thesearguments: 1) are they convincing? and 2) how can I connect these arguments to whatI already know about the subject matter? The essay is taken from FitzGerald’sjournal articles/book America Revised: History Schoolbooksin the Twentieth Century, so draw your students’ attention totechniques of comparison and contrast and the ways in which FitzGerald assessescurrent (i.e. 1970s)history textbooks. As FitzGerald is writing abouttherewriting of Americanhistory, the text contains quite a number of references to U.S. history. Givethe students just enough information to enable them to understandthe text, but askthem to focus more on how FitzGerald makes her argument.

 

Here are a fewsuggestions for handling the essay. Ask your students to keep these in mind whilescanning the essay: 1) state what the essay is about in one or two sentences;2) enumerate its major parts in their order and relation and outline theseparts; and 3) define the problem or problems the author is trying to solve. Inclass, you can ask your students to 1) identify and interpret the author’s keywords, for example, “rewriting”, “change”, “problems”, “patchwork”, “diversity”, etc.; 2) grasp the author’sleading propositions by dealing with her most important sentences; 3) know theauthor’s arguments, by constructing them out of sequences of sentences; and 4)determine which of the problems she presents the author has solved, and whichshe has not. At the end of the week, you can ask your students to assessFitzGerald’s writing and present good reasons for any critical judgments  they make.

 

 

Structure of the Text

 

Part I  Introduction

(1)It is hard to imagine history textbooks as being subject to change.  

 

Part II American History SchoolbooksRewritten

Section I: changing history textbooks

(2-4)Examples of changes that have takenplace

(5)It is not surprising that textbooks reflect changing scholarly research, butthe changes remain shocking.

Section II: three types of changes thathave taken place

(6-9)political change: patchwork replacing unity, problems replacing progress

(10-11)pedagogical change

(12-13)physical change

 

Part III Conclusion

(14-15)There is no perfect objectivity, but the problem withconstantly changing school history textbooks isthat each generationof children reads only its own generation’stextbooks and thereforelearns only oneparticular and transientversion of America,which remains their version of American history forever. 

 

Outline and Topic Sentences:

 

Part I

Para.1

Topicsentence: Those of us who grew up in the fifties believed in the permanence ofour American-history textbooks.

Transitionalsentence: But now the textbook histories have changed, some of them to such anextent that an adult would find them unrecognizable.

 

Part II

 

Para.2

Topicsentence: One current junior-high-school American history begins with a storyabout a Negro cowboy called George McJunkin.

Example:George McJunkin, Negro cowboy, discovery ofremains of an Indian civilization in 1925 àcivilizations before European explorers

Para.3

Topicsentence: Another history text—this one for the fifth grade—begins with thestory of how Henry B. Gonzalez, who is a member of Congress from Texas, learnedabout his own nationality.

Example:Henry B. Gonzalez, question of nationality: birthright or cultural heritage,melting pot vs. salad bowl

Para.4

Topicsentence: Poor Columbus! He is a minor character now, a walk-on in the middleof American history.

Example:Columbus, prominence in U.S. history fading with time and revision, along withother  self-promoting figures in U.S.history.

Para.5

Topicsentence: Of course, when one thinks about it, it is hardly surprising thatmodern scholarship and modern perspectives have found their way into children’sbooks. Yet the changes remain shocking.

Para.6

Topicsentence: The history texts now hint at a certain level of unpleasantness inAmerican history.

Examples:the last “wild” Indian captured and displayed, child coal miners ofPennsylvania, cruelty in the American-Filipino War, cruelty of patriots againstroyalists in the American Revolution,and Japanese internment.

Para.7

Topicsentence: Ideologically speaking, the histories of the fifties were implacable,seamless.

Para.8

Topicsentence: But now the texts have changed, and with them the country thatAmerican children are growing up into.

Aradical way of reconceptualizing past and future:

Ø  Society:uniform à a patchwork ofwealth, ages, gender, and races

Ø  Smooth-runningsystem à a rattletrapaffair

Ø  Pastfuture relationship: progress àchange

Ø  Thepresent: a haven of scientific advances à atangle of problems

o   Examples: problems of consumer society;problems of the poor and aged whodepend onsocial security.

o   Science and technology still deemed tobe the magic bullet for social problems

Para.9

Transitionalsentence: Even more surprising than the emergence of problems is the discoverythat the great unity of the texts has broken.

Topicsentence: Whereas in the fifties all texts represented the same political view,current texts follow no pattern of orthodoxy.

Examples:

Ø  Portrayalof civil rights: as a series of actions taken by a wise, paternal governmentvs. the involvementof social upheaval

Ø  Portrayalof the Cold War: having ended vs. continuing

Para.10

Topic sentence: The political diversity in the books is matched by a diversity ofpedagogical approach.

Types:

Ø  Traditional narrative histories

Ø  Focusing on particular topics with “discovery” or “inquiry” texts and chapters like casestudies (with background information, explanatory notes and questions)(questions are at the heart of thematter; they force students to think much as historians think, to define thepoint of view of the speaker, analyze the ideas presented, question therelationship between events, and so on.)

o   Example: Washington, Jefferson, and JohnAdams on the question of foreign alliances

Para.11

Topic sentence: What is common to the current texts—and makes all of them differentfrom those of the fifties—is their engagement with the social sciences.

Transitional sentence: In matters of pedagogy, as in matters of politics, there are not twosharply differentiated categories of books; rather, there is a spectrum.

Ø  Politicaland pedagogical spectrum:

o   politically, from moderate left tomoderate right;

o   pedagogically,from the traditional history sermon, through a middle ground of narrative textswith inquiry-style questions and of inquiry texts with long stretches ofnarrative, to the most rigorous of case-study books

Ø  Engagementwith the social sciences

o   “Concepts” as foundation stones forvarious elementary-school social-studies series

§  Example:the 1970 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich series, “a horizontal base or ordering ofconceptual schemes” to match its “vertical arm of behavioral themes,” from easyquestions to hard

o   History textbooks almost always includediscussions of “role,” “status,” and “culture;” some include debates betweeneminent social scientists, essays on economics or sociology, or pictures andshort biographies of social scientists of both sexes and of diverse races

Para.12

Topicsentence: Quite as striking as these political and pedagogical alterations isthe change in the physical appearance of the texts.

 

                         

Comparison  and Contrast
	The  1950s	Current(1970s)
Overall	Showing  some effort in the matter of design: they had maps, charts, cartoons,  photography, and an occasional four-color picture to break up the columns of  print;   Looking  as naïve as Soviet fashion magazinesbeside  the current texts	Paragons  of sophisticated modern design
Print	Heavy  and far too black, the colors muddy
Photographs  and illustrations	Photographs:  conventional news shots;   Illustrations:  Socialist-realist-style drawings or incredibly vulgar made-for-children  paintings of patriotic events	Far  greater space given to illustrations;   The  pictures far outweighing the text in importance in certain “slow-learner”  books;   The  illustrations having a much greater historical value: cartoons, photographs,  and paintings drawn from the periods being treated

 

Para.13

Topic sentence: The use of all this art and high-quality design contains some irony.

Example of how art transcends the subject matter: child laborers, urban slum apartments,the Triangle shirtwaist-factoryfire, junk yards, nuclear testing

Paragraph summary: Whereas in the nineteenth-fifties the texts were childish in the sensethat they were naïve and clumsy, they are now childish in the sense that theyare polymorphous-perverse. American history is not dull any longer; it is asensuous experience.

 

Part III

Para.14

Topic sentence: The surprise that adults feel in seeing the changes in history textsmust come from the lingering hope that there is somewhere out there, anobjective truth.

Question:why is it disturbing to see the changes in history textbooks?

Paragraph summary: The texts, with their impersonal voices, encourage this hope that there is an objectivetruth, and therefore it is particularly disturbing to see how they change, and how fast.

 

Para.15

Topicse ntence: In history, the system is reasonable—except that each generation ofchildren reads only one generation of school books.The transient history is thosechildren’s history forever—their particular version of America.

 

 

Detailed Analysisof the Text

1.      Thoseof us who grew up in the fifties believed in the permanence of ourAmerican-history textbooks. (Para. 1)

Thisis the topic sentence of Para. 1. FitzGerald starts her article by talkingabout how people generally believed that history textbooks would never change.She presents a fewreasons why American history textbooks of that era gave the impression thatthey would never change: they were heavy, solemn, authoritative, imperturbable, anddistant. The last sentence of the paragraph is a transitional sentence leadingto adiscussionof how history textbooks in the 1970s differ from those a generation earlier.

 

2.      To usas children, those texts were the truth of things: they were American history.(Para. 1)

Translation: 对于儿时的我们来说，历史书就代表了事实真相，因为它们是美国历史。

 

3.      Itwas not just that we read them before we understood that not everything that isprinted is the truth, or the whole truth. (Para. 1)

“It”refers to the sentence that comes immediately before this one. FitzGeralddiscusses why children tended tobelieve in the permanence and authority of history textbooks. Shecontendsthat school childrenalreadyunderstood, by the time they read American history textbooks, that what isprinted in black and white is not always true. In other words, school childrendid not blindly trust  just any books.Something special about history textbooks set them apart from other printed material. In the rest of theparagraph, FitzGeraldelaborates on the uniqueness of Americanhistory texts.

 

4.      It wasthat they, much more than other books, had the demeanor and trappings ofauthority. (Para. 1)

Translation: 是因为和其他书比起来，历史书看起来充满了权威。

 

5.      Theywere weighty volumes. (Para. 1)

ProbablyFitzGerald uses “weighty” as a pun, referring to theseriousness and importanceofhistory textbooks as well as to theirthickness and heaviness.

 

6.      Theyspoke in measured cadences: imperturbable, humorless, and as distant as Chineseemperors. (Para. 1)

1)      measured: (ofspeech or writing) carefully considered, deliberate, restrained; having a slow,regular rhythm仔细斟酌的、慎重的；缓慢而又有节奏的

Examples: measured language; measuredterms

2)     Translation: 美国历史教材字斟句酌、严谨慎重、呆板无趣，而且像中国皇帝一样拒人于千里之外。

 

7.      Ourteachers treated them with respect, and we paid them abject homage bymemorizing a chapter a week. (Para. 1)

1)     homage:fromthe word for “man,”originally referring to the acknowledgement of allegiance avassal gave to a feudal lord. In modern usage, homage connotes a similar showof respect and commitment, but often in a less formal and binding relationship.

Synonyms: honor, deference, reverence,  loyalty, respect, admiration, allegiance,honor

Antonyms: disrespect

Examples:

He paid homage to his ancestors bymaintaining as many of his family’s Native American traditions as he could.(respect, loyalty)

The actor was given a star on the HollywoodWalkof Famein homage to his many achievements. (honor, reverence)

2)     Paraphrase: Ourteachers took American history texts seriously, and we respected them bymemorizing a chapter a week.

3)     Theattitude of the teachers and thestudents further illustrates that the Americanhistory texts in the 1950s were takenseriously and believed not tobe subject tochange.

 

8.      Butnow the textbook histories have changed, some of them to such an extent that anadult would find them unrecognizable. (Para. 1)

Thisis a transitional sentence that introduces the changes that had taken placesince the 1950s. “To such an extent that” emphasizes the amount of changes thathad occurred.

 

9.      Onecurrent junior-high-school American history begins with a story about a Negrocowboy called George McJunkin. (Para. 2)

1)     junior-high-school:this hyphenated phrase modifies American history. When a phrase is used tomodify a noun, it is often hyphenated, for example, state-of-the-art scientificand engineering knowledge and expertise; an up-to-the-minute report.

2)     George McJunkin’s story shows that newdiscoveries may change the writing of history. McJunkin’s discovery led toarchaeological excavations that identified Native American activities nearpresent-day New Mexico ten thousand years ago. On the other hand, McJunkin cameupon the Indian relics in 1925, butitwas nearly fifty years later that this discovery found its way into a textbook.This suggests the gap between the latest historical discoveries and the writingof textbooks. Yet more importantly,thediscussion of Indian civilizations before the European colonization of NorthAmerica became a critical part of historical discourse after the 1960scivil rights movements. The rise ofmulticulturalismdisruptedthe white-male-Anglo-Saxon-centered perspective and destabilized the centralityof 1492 (Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” of America) to American history.FitzGerald also illustrates with the McJunkin example that social science—inthis case the discussion of the word “culture”—became a staple in Americanhistory textbooks in the 1970s.

 

10.   Itappears that when McJunkin was riding down a lonely trail in New Mexico onecold spring morning in 1925 he discovered a mound containing bones and stoneimplements, which scientists later proved belonged to an Indian civilizationten thousand years old.  (Para. 2)

1)     lonely:(ofa place) unfrequented and remote偏僻的、荒凉的、人迹罕至的。Example: a lonely stretch of countrylane; dark, lonely streets

2)     trail: abeaten path through rough country乡间小路、林间小径

Other usages of trail (noun):

a large area of woodland with hiking andwalking trails (a route along a series of paths or roads, often one that hasbeen planned and marked out for a particular purpose)

a trail of blood on the grass; Thetyphoon has left a trail of death and destruction across much of central Japan(a mark or a series of signs or objects left behind by a passage of someone orsomething)

a Democratic candidate on the campaigntrail (all the places that a politician visits in the period before anelection)

3)     implement:(noun) a tool, utensil, or other piece of equipment, especially as used for aparticular purpose

Examples: agricultural implements;garden implements; writing implements

When “implement” is used as a verb, itmeans “put (a plan, decision, agreement, etc.) into effect.” Example: Thegovernment promised to implement a new system to control financial loaninstitutions.

4)     The relative clause “which scientistslater proved belonged to an Indian civilization ten thousand years old”modifies “bones and stone implements.”科学家们后来证明这些骨骸和石器属于一万年前的印第安文明。

 

11.   The book goes on to say that scientistsnow believe there were people in the Americas at least twenty thousand yearsago. (Para. 2)

the Americas: 南北美洲

 

12.  Whenhe was ten years old, his teacher told him he was an American because he wasborn in the United States. (Para. 3)

Theteacher referred to the U.S. practice of unconditional birthright citizenshipconferred by jus soli (Latin, right of the soil), i.e. the right of anyone bornin the territory of a state to nationality or citizenship.

                          

13.  Hisgrandmother, however, said, “The cat was born in the oven. Does that make himbread?” (Para. 3)

Gonzalez’sgrandmotherridiculedthe idea of citizenship based on unconditional jus soli, saying that where onewas born does not determine who she is. The grandmother’s words show thecontested history of the borderland and citizenship. 

 

14.  Afterreporting that Mr. Gonzalez eventually went to college and law school, the bookexplains that “the melting pot idea hasn’t worked out as some thought itwould,” and that now “some people say that the people of the United States aremore like a salad bowl than a melting pot.” (Para. 3)

“Salad bowl” and “melting pot” are metaphors that describe societies with multipleracial and ethnic groups. In the salad bowl model, various ethnic cultures arejuxtaposed—like salad ingredients—but do not merge into a single homogeneousculture. Each culture keeps its owndistinct qualities. This idea proposes a society of many individualculturesin addition to the mixed, coreculture.The more traditional melting pot model refers to a heterogeneous societybecoming more homogeneous, the different elements “melting together” into aharmonious whole with a common culture. It suggests that ethnic groups may beunable to preservetheirculturesdue to assimilation. The exact term “melting pot” came into general usage inthe United States after it was used as a metaphordescribing a fusion of nationalities,cultures and ethnicities in the 1908 play of the same title. Proponents ofmulticulturalism question thedesirabilityof assimilation and the melting pot model. They suggested alternativemetaphorsto describecurrentAmerican society, such as a mosaic, salad bowl, or kaleidoscope. Others arguethat cultural assimilation is important to the maintenance of national unity,and should be promoted.

 

15.  PoorColumbus! He is a minor character now, a walk-on in the middle of AmericanHistory. (Para. 4)

1)      walk-on: a minor rolein which the actor has no or very few speaking lines小角色、跑龙套的演员

2)      Notethe different methods thatFitzGerald uses to demonstrate the rewriting of American history: a minorcharacter now, a walk-on, suffer from time and revision; disappear, fade away,give way to, no longer, give place to, reconstruct, change from… to…, insteadof, etc. The variation of words, phrases, and sentence patterns create a clearand diversified style.

3)      Paragraph4 starts with an exclamation “Poor Columbus!” Here FitzGeraldbringsinto focus the changesof cast and storyline in the 1970s American history textbooks: major charactersrelegated to minor roles, new characters introduced, and stories of gloryreplaced by those of resistance.

 

16.  Eventhose books that have not replaced his picture with a Mayan temple or anIroquois mask do not credit him with discovering America—even for theEuropeans. (Para. 4)

Notethe verb phrases of “credit”:

Thescreenplay is credited to one American and two Japanese writers.

Inthe old days, many herbs were credited with healing powers.

 

17.  TheVikings, they say, preceded him to the New World, and after that the Europeans,having lost or forgotten their maps, simply neglected to cross the ocean againfor five hundred years. (Para. 4)

neglect to do something:fail to do something

Slight, disregard, neglect, overlook mean topay no or too little attention to someone or something. To slight is to give only superficial attention to somethingimportant: to slight one’s colleague. To disregardis topay no attention to a person or thing: to disregard the rules; in some circumstances,to disregard may be admirable: todisregard a handicap. To neglect isto fail to pay sufficientattention to a person or thing: to neglect one’s correspondence. To overlook is to fail to see someone orsomething (possibly because of carelessness): to overlook a bill that is due. 

 

18.  Columbusis far from being the only personage to have suffered from time and revision.(Para. 4)

Paraphrase: Columbus isnot the only historical figure whohas been forgotten or marginalized by the rewriting of school history textbooks.

personage: a person(often used to express their importance, or elevated status)

Person, individual, and personage are terms applied to human beings. Person is the most general and common word: the average person. Individual views a person as standingalone or as a single member of a group: the characteristics of the individual. Personage is used (sometimes ironically)of an outstanding or illustrious person: We have a distinguished personagevisiting us today.

Captain John Smith, Daniel Boone, andWild Bill Hickok—the great self-promoters of American history—have all butdisappeared, taking with them a good deal of the romance of the Americanfrontier. (Para. 4)

1)      all but: almost, verynearly.

Example: These batteries are all butdead.

2)      romance: a mysterious,exciting, sentimental, or nostalgic quality, especially one associated with aplace浪漫情调、传奇色彩

Example: We want to recreate the romanceand excitement that used to be part of rail journeys.

3)      Paraphrase: John Smith wasa colonist who established the first British colony in the United States andDaniel Boone and Wild Bill Hickok were both associated with the settlement ofthe western frontier. They represent what American history used to glorify:adventurousness, exploration, and conquest, but the 1970s history textbooks nolonger talked about them. They became unpopular and disappeared from the text’spages.

 

19.  GeneralCuster has given way to Chief Crazy Horse; General Eisenhower no longerliberates Europe single-handed; and, indeed, most generals, even to Washingtonand Lee, have faded away, as old soldiers do, giving place to social reformerssuch as William Lloyd Garrison and Jacob Riis. (Para. 4)

Inthese two sentences, FitzGerald lists the disappearance of a whole cast ofprominent historical players. She uses a variety of words and phrases:disappear, give way to, no longer, fade away, giveplace to.

 

20.  Anumber of black Americans have risen to prominence: not only George WashingtonCarver but Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Para. 4)

rise to prominence:become well-known or important

Martin Luther King, Jr.:Jr. is an abbreviation for “junior” in names. Note that a period (a punctuationmark “.”) is used with it. If Jr. appears at the end of a sentence, thereshould only be one period (“.”).

 

21.  W.E.B. Du Bois now invariably accompanies Booker T. Washington. (Para. 4)

1)      invariably: always,without exception

2)      accompany: be present oroccur at the same time as (something else).

Example: The illness is oftenaccompanied by nausea.

“Accompany” could also mean “to go alongor in company with”(to accompany a friend on a walk) or “to play a musicalaccompaniment for” (He sang and Alice accompanied him on the piano).

3)      W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington held vastlydifferent views about the ways to achieve racial equality. The historytextbooks in the past  included only BookerT. Washington because he believed in accommodation with the white race andgradual equality with industrial achievement. However, the textbooks of  the 1970s also discussed W. E. B. Du Bois, whoadvocated radical social change through agitation and protest. The inclusion ofDu Bois shows the changedperspective of textbook writers and publishers, which in turnreflects a change in  political attitude on the part of the generalpublic.

 

22.  Inaddition, there is a mystery man called Crispus Attucks. A fugitive slave aboutwhom nothing seems to be known for certain except that he was a victim of theBoston massacre and thus became one of the first casualties of the AmericanRevolution. (Para. 4)

1)      a mystery man:mystery is used as an attributive noun here. It functions as an adjectivedescribing the following noun, “man.”Here mysterymeans “a person or thing whose identity or nature is puzzling or unknown.”Example: “He’s a bit of a mystery,” said Nina; a mystery guest. Mysterious, when referring to a person,means “difficult or impossible to understand, explain, or identify” (Amysterious benefactor provided the money) or “deliberately enigmatic” (She wasmysterious about herself but said plenty about her husband).

2)      fugitive: a person whohas escaped from a place or is in hiding, especially to avoid arrest orpersecution

3)      casualty: a personkilled in a war or accident

4)      Again,FitzGerald illustrates that many historical events, the American Revolutionincluded,werebeing subject to revision .

5)      FitzGeraldimplies that in the decades before the 1970s, Attucks, a runaway slave, couldnot have found his way into tales about the American Revolution. Its centralcharacters were perceived as white, Anglo-Saxon loyalists who wanted to severtheir ties with their mother country. In other words, it was impossible to concede that a figure such as Attuckshadexisted or toimagine him as part of the history of the American Revolution.

 

23.  ThaddeusStevens has been reconstructed—his character changed, as it were, from black towhite, from cruel and vindictive to persistent and sincere. (Para. 4)

1)      as it were: seemingly, ina way. It is a shortening of “as it were so.”

Usage example: he was living in a dreamworld, as it were.

2)      from black to white:totally changed or reconstructed

3)      FitzGeralddiscusses how historiographical accounts of Thaddeus Stevens had shifted  dramatically over the years, from the earlytwentieth-century view of Stevens as reckless and motivated by hatred of thewhite South, to the perspective of the neo-abolitionists of the 1950s andafterwards, who applauded him for his egalitarian views and his fight inCongress to end slavery and bring about freedom and equality for African Americans.

 

24.  Asfor Teddy Roosevelt, he now champions the issue of conservation instead ofcharging up San Juan Hill. (Para. 4)

1)      champion: to support thecause of, defend. Synonyms include support, advocate, promote, endorse

2)      conservation: preservation,protection, and restoration of the natural environment, natural ecosystems,vegetation, and wildlife

3)      charge: rush forwardin attack. Example: The plan is to charge headlong at the enemy.

4)      FitzGeralduses two examples to show the change of attitude towards President TheodoreRoosevelt. In the 1970s, history textbooks painted Roosevelt as a man who careddeeply about the environment. He was the first president to speak out aboutconservation, and he greatly expanded the system of national parks and nationalforests. The earlier history textbooks, however, focused on his masculinity,and portrayed him as a man of courage who led the Rough Riders in a decisivevictory in The Battle of San JuanHill during  the 1898Spanish-American War.

 

25.   Nosingle President really stands out as a hero, but all Presidents—except certainunmentionables in the second half of the nineteenth century—seem to have doneas well as could be expected, given difficult circumstances. (Para. 4)

1)     standout:be much better or much more important than the other things of the same kind

Examples:

He played the violin beautifully, standing outfrom the other musicians.

He is so tall that he always stands outin a crowd.

2)     unmentionable:(noun, chiefly humorous) a person or thing too shocking or embarrassing to bementioned by name

Example: That subject was classed amongthe unmentionables.

3)     aswell as:in as satisfactory or good a way as

Compare and contrast the differentusages of “as well as”:

After the operation, she was supposed towalk around as well as she could, without using a cane. (inas satisfactory a way as)

He is an excellent teacher as well as afine musician. (to the same extent as)

The editors as well as the proofreadersare working overtime. (in addition to)

4)     circumstance:(usually circumstances) a fact or condition connected or relevant to an eventor action

Example: The strategy was too dangerousin the explosive circumstances of the times.

5)     Paraphrase: The1970s textbooks no longer focus on the heroism of individual presidents. Instead,they treat the presidents as agroup, and argue that, considering the tremendous difficulties they faced,most of them did fairly well. There are exceptions, of course. A few were considered to havemadeincorrect decisions but they were not mentionedby name.

6)     FitzGerald probably had in mind AndrewJohnson, who was impeached in 1868 by the Republican-dominated House ofRepresentatives fora plan thataimed at quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union without givingprotection for  former slaves. FitzGeraldmight also be thinking about Ulysses Grant whose administration was tarnishedby various scandals.

7)      Translation: 除了十九世纪下半叶某些无法提及的总统，没有一个总统被当成英雄，但是考虑到当时的困境，所有总统的政绩似乎都符合人们的期待。

 

26.   Ofcourse, when one thinks about it, it is hardly surprising that modernscholarship and modern perspectives have found their way into children’s books.Yet the changes remain shocking. (Para. 5)

1)      scholarship: academic studyor achievement; learning of a high level

Example: This book displays theconsiderable scholarship of its author.

Note it is different from scholarship’sother definition, “a sum of money or other aid granted to a student, because ofmerit, need, etc., to pursue his or her studies.”

2)      perspective: a particularattitude towards or way of regarding something, a point of view

Examples:                 

This book offers a new historicalperspective.

Most literature on the subject ofimmigrants in France has been written from the perspective of the Frenchthemselves.

Note the phrase in/into/out ofperspective: judge its real importance in relation to everything else

You have to live here for a few years tosee local conditions in perspective.

I let things get out of perspective.

3)      Inthe earlier paragraph, FitzGerald lists many changes that an adult reader wouldfind in the American history textbooks of the 1970s. Paragraph 5 starts with atransitional sentence, followed by the topic sentence. FitzGerald acknowledgesthat one would expect newknowledge and points of view to find their way into history textbooks, butwhat is surprising is the degree and extent of changes.

 

27.   Thosewho in the sixties complained of the bland optimism, the chauvinism, and thematerialism of their old civics text did so in the belief that, for all theirprotests, the texts would never change. (Para. 5)

1)      complain: to expressdissatisfaction or annoyance about the state of affairs or an event

Examples:

He complained constantly about the noisein the corridor.

Nurses complained of being overworkedand underpaid.

Complainofalso means “tostate that one is suffering from a pain or other symptom of an illness,” forexample, to complain of a headache.

Synonyms: Complain, grumble, whine, and rail are terms for expressing dissatisfaction or discomfort. To complain is to protest against or lamenta wrong: to complain about high prices. To grumbleis to utter ill-natured complaints half to oneself: to grumble about the service.To whine is to complain in amean-spirited way, using a nasal tone: to whine like a coward, like a spoiledchild. To rail is to complain bybeing harsh and angry: to rail against the paparazzi.

2)      bland: lacking inspecial interest, liveliness, individuality, etc.; insipid; dull

3)      chauvinism: exaggeratedbelief in the supremacy of one’s nation, class, caste, or group. Note thepronunciation of the word. Also note that chauvinism is often used as shorthandfor “male chauvinism,” a term describing the attitudes of men who believe thatwomen are inferior and should not be given equal status with men.

4)      materialism: a tendency toconsider material possessions and physical comfort as more important thanspiritual values拜金主义.  Note that in philosophy, materialism refersto the doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements andmodifications唯物主义.

5)      civics: (usuallytreated as a singular noun) the study of the rights and duties of citizenship

6)      for: despite,notwithstanding. “For all their protest” is a parenthesis, marked off by a pairof commas. It introduces a sense of concession. If we leave out theparenthesis, the sentence is still grammatically correct.

7)      AgainFitzGerald points to the uniqueness of American history textbooks. At theheight of the civil rights movement, people expressed dissatisfactionabout  civics textbooks and regarded themas containing too much patriotism, chauvinism, and materialism. But they neverexpected thetexts to change.

 

28.   Thethought must have had something reassuring about it, for that generation nevernoticed when its complaint began to take effect and the songs about radioactiverainfall and houses made of ticky-tacky began to appear in the textbooks.(Para. 5)

1)      the songs about radioactive rainfall:FitzGerald probably had in mind Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,”written in the summer of 1962. It is a complex and powerful song built upon thequestion and answer refrain pattern of a traditional British ballad. Some havesuggestedthat the song refers to nuclear fallout, citing particularly the lines in thelast verse “Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters, Where thehome in the valley meets the damp dirty prison, And the executioner’s face isalways well hidden.” But Dylan disputes that this was a specific reference, andsaid in a 1963 interview that it “means all the lies that people get told ontheir radios and in their newspapers.” Whether envisioning a nuclear winter ornot, the dense imagery of the song has a broad sweep and suggests injustice, suffering,pollution, and warfare. 

2)      (the songs about) houses made ofticky-tacky: thisrefers toMalvinaReynolds’s 1962 song“Little Boxes”, most notably sung byPete Seener. “LittleBoxes” is a political satire about the development of suburbia and the associatedconformist middle-class attitudes. It refers to suburban tract housing as“little boxes” of different colors “all made out of ticky-tacky,” and which“all look the same.” “Ticky-tacky” is a reference to the shoddy material usedin the construction of that time. The people in the houses were the same too:they “went to the university,” “came out the same,” and became “doctors andlawyers” and “business executives.”  And“they’re all made out of ticky tacky,” and “all look just the same.”

3)     六十年代的那一代人曾经认为，无论他们如何抗议，历史课本都不会改变。这个想法一定很让人放心，因为，当他们的意见发生作用时，关于放射性降雨和粗制滥造的房子的歌曲收进历史课本，他们竟然浑然不觉。

 

29.    Butthis is what happened. (Para. 5)

Avery short sentence ends this paragraph. This change of pace suggestsdiscontinuityand contrast. It also hints at whatFitzGerald will write about in the next paragraphs: the types of changes thathad taken place.

 

30.   Thehistory texts now hint at a certain level of unpleasantness in Americanhistory. (Para. 6)

Thisis the topic sentence of Paragraph 6. One revision that FitzGerald has noticedduring her review of Americanhistorytextbooks of the 1970s is the unpleasantness that these books suggest. Americanhistory used to be a story of unity, glory, adventure, freedom, and justice.The list of such virtues couldbe very long. But the 1970s texts implythatAmericans were, after all, not as innocent as previously portrayed. Theexamples that FitzGerald cites in this paragraph show that the textbooks startto acknowledge violence, torture, immorality, and injustice as part of Americanhistory.

 

31.   Severalbooks, for instance, tell the story of Ishi, the last “wild” Indian in thecontinental United States, who, captured in 1911 after the massacre of histribe, spent the final four and a half years of his life in the University ofCalifornia’s museum of anthropology, in San Francisco. (Para. 6)

1)      massacre: anindiscriminate and brutal slaughter of people

Example: The attack was described as acold-blooded massacre.

Synonyms: Slaughter, butcher, and massacre all imply violent and bloody methodsof killing. Slaughter and butcher, primarily referring to thekilling of animals for food, are used also of the brutal or indiscriminatekilling of human beings: to slaughter cattle; to butcher a hog. Massacre indicates a generalslaughtering of helpless or unresisting victims: to massacre the inhabitants of aregion.

2)      Themain structure of the sentence is “Several books tell the story of Ishi.”

3)      Ishi(1860-1916), considered the last aboriginal Native American in the UnitedStates, left his native homeland in 1911 when he walked into a settlement nearOroville, California. He lived for the next five years in San Francisco at the Universityof California  anthropology museum, wherehe was the subject of intense interest on the part of the public andthe academy. The middle-aged Ishi was regarded as both a public curiosity fromthe Stone Age and thesource of vital anthropological data on Native American life prior to Europeansettlement. The story of Ishi hints at the “unpleasantness” of American historybecause, (1) white settlement obliterated Native American ways of living in thehalfcenturyfollowing the California Gold Rush of 1849; and (2) the display of Ishi objectifieshim as a museum attraction.

4)      continental United States:note its difference from“the contiguous United States” (“Contiguous” means sharing a common border,touching).  The contiguous United Statesis the 48 states on the continent of North America that are south of Canada andnorth of Mexico, plus the District of Columbia. Because Alaska is also on theNorth American continent, the term continental United States, if interpretedliterally, would also includeAlaska.The ContinentalUnited States does not include Hawaii or any off-shore U.S. territories andpossessions.

5)     例如，有几本书讲到了美国大陆最后一个“野生”印第安人Ishi的故事。在他的族人被屠杀殆尽之后，1911年Ishi被俘，在位于旧金山的加州大学人类学博物馆度过了生命最后的四年半。

 

32.   Atleast three books show the same stunning picture of the breaker boys, the childcoal miners of Pennsylvania—ancient children with deformed bodies and blackenedfaces who stare stupidly out from the entrance to a mine. (Para. 6)

1)      ancient: showing orfeeling signs of age or wear

Example: The neighboring buildings hadbeen updated and shuffled from owner to owner, but this one still had anancient sign with peeling paint and faded print.

Synonyms: ancient, antiquated, antique, and old-fashioned refer to something dating from the past. Ancient implies existence or firstoccurrence in a distant past: an ancient custom. Antiquated connotes something too old or no longer useful: anantiquated building. Antique suggestsa curious or pleasing quality in something old: antique furniture. Old-fashioned may disparage something asbeing out of date or may approve something old as being superior: anold-fashioned courtesy.

2)      deformed: having theform changed, especially with loss of beauty; misshapen; disfigured

Example: After the accident his arm waspermanently deformed.

Synonyms: mar, deface, disfigure, and deform agree in applying to some form of injury. Mar is general, but usually refers to anexternal or surface injury, if it is a physical one: The tabletop was marred bydents and scratches. Deface refers toa surface injury that may be temporary or easily repaired: a drawingdefaced by penciled notations. Disfigure applies to external injury ofa more permanent and serious kind: a birthmark disfigured one side of his face.Deform suggests that something hasbeen distorted or internally injured so severely as to change its normal formor qualities, or else that some fault has interfered with its properdevelopment: deformed by an accident that had crippled him; to deform feet bybinding them.

3)      stupid: in a state ofnear-unconsciousness or insensitivity, stunned, dazed, or stupefied呆滞的、恍惚的、麻木的

4)     至少三本书里都有同一张让人怵目惊心的照片。镜头下宾夕法尼亚州煤矿里分拣煤炭的童工身体扭曲、满脸煤灰，从煤矿口呆滞地望出来。

 

33.  Onebook quotes a soldier on the use of torture in the American campaign to pacifythe Philippines at the beginning of the century. (Para. 6)

1)      quote somebody on something:mention or refer to (someone or something) to provide evidence or authority fora statement, argument, or opinion

Examples:

Don’t quote me on this, but I think thecompany is in serious trouble.

They won’t be here at all in three yearstime—you can quote me on that.

2)      pacify: to reduce to astate of submission, especially by military force

3)      FitzGeraldrefers to the Philippine-American War, 1899-1902, an armedconflict between the United States and Filipino revolutionaries. During thewar, American soldiers attacked the countryside, often burning and destroying entirevillages. Their strategies also included the use of torture (“the watercure”, forexample) and the concentration of civilians into “protected zones.” 

 

34.  Anumber of books say that during the American Revolution the patriots tarred andfeathered those who did not support them, and drove many of the loyalists fromthe country. (Para. 6)

1)      tar and feather:tocoat (a person) with tar (a dark, thick, flammable liquid distilled from woodor coal) and feathers as a punishment or humiliation

2)      ThePatriots and the Loyalists were two factions in the American Revolution(1765-1783). The Loyalists tended to have longstanding social and economicconnections to British merchants and government, while the Patriots tended tobe yeoman farmers, craftsmen, and small merchants. The Loyalists thoughtresistance to the Crown—which they insisted was the only legitimategovernment—was morally wrong; thepatriots thought morality was on their side, as they viewed independence as ameans to gain freedom from British oppression and taxation, and above all, toreassert what they considered to be their rights as English subjects. ThePatriots resorted to violence, such as burning houses and tarring andfeathering, to alienate the Loyalists. In Salem, Massachusetts,in 1767, mobsattacked low-level employees of the customs service with tar and feathers. Afew similar attacks followedthrough 1774.  In the same year, thePatriots suppressed the Loyalists and expelled all royal officials.

 

35.  Almostall the present-day history books note that the United States internedJapanese-Americans in detention camps during the Second World War. (Para. 6)

1)      intern: to detain orconfine (foreign or enemy citizens, etc.), especially during wartime. Its nounform, internment, should not be confused with interment (“the burial of acorpse in a grave or tomb”) or internship (“working, sometimes without pay, ata trade or occupation in order to gain work experience”).  (“intern” is used of people only; ships canbe “seized” or “arrested”.)  

2)      FitzGeraldrefers to the Japanese American Internment during World War II. Shortly afterthe Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, over 120,000 U.S. residents of Japaneseheritage, two thirds of whom were American citizens, were incarcerated underarmed guard. With no crimes committed, no trials, and no convictions, JapaneseAmericans, particularly those on the West Coast, were rounded-up in “WarRelocation Centers” and Department of Justice’s detention camps. The lastinternment camp was closed by the end of 1945.

 

36.  Ideologicallyspeaking, the histories of the fifties were implacable, seamless. (Para. 7)

1)      Thisis the topic sentence of Para. 7. FitzGerald talks about the characteristics ofthe history textbooks published in the 1950s. What makes these textbooksdifferent from the ones a generation later is their ideological unity. Theytell one story, a single truth.

2)      Translation:

从意识形态上来说，五十年代写就的历史书坚如磐石、天衣无缝。

 

37.  Insidetheir covers, America was perfect: the greatest nation in the world, and theembodiment of democracy, freedom, and technological progress. (Para. 7)

1)      embodiment: someone orsomething that symbolizes or represents a quality or an idea exactly. Ifsomething is an embodiment, it embodies (symbolizes, represents) somethingelse. The noun embodiment and the verb embody are usually used to describe apositive symbol or representation of something else, although they can also beused to describe someone or something that represents evil.

Synonym:

Embodiment issynonymous with personification. Personification is used to describe aperson representing or being a perfect example of something. (i.e.: Shepersonifies kindness.)Embodiment isused more to describe inanimate things, but can also be used to describe people who exemplify anidea.

Examples:

The Statue of Liberty is the embodimentof freedom and opportunity in the United States. (representation, symbol)

The company’s new cruise ship is theembodiment of luxury. (symbol, personification)

2)      Paraphrase: In 1950s school historytextbooks, textbookwriters and editors portrayed the United States as a perfect nation and asymbol of democracy, freedom, and technological progress.

 

38.  To mygeneration—the children of the fifties—these texts appeared permanent justbecause they were so self-contained. (Para. 7)

permanent:lasting or continuing without interruption

self-contained: (ofa thing) complete, or having all that is needed, in itself

Paraphrase:

Thetextbooks of the fifties seemed safe from change because theirideas seemed truthful and could not be challenged.

 

39.  Theirorthodoxy, it seemed, left no handholds for attack, no lodging for decay.(Para. 7)

Thisis an explanation of the earlier sentence, an elaboration of what FitzGeraldmeant by “permanent” and “self-contained.”

handhold: something fora hand to grip

lodging:beingfixed, implanted, or caught in a place or position

decay: the process ofdeclining in quality, power, or vigor

Paraphrase:

Itseemed that the ideas that the textbooks advocated could not possibly bechallenged and thattheywould remain true forever.

Translation:

历史书的正统观念看起来无懈可击, 永不衰败。

 

40.  Who,after all, would dispute the wonders of technology or the superiority of theEnglish colonialists over the Spanish? Who would find fault with the pastoraleof the West or the Old South? Who would question the anti-Communist crusade?(Para. 7)

1）afterall:in spite of any indications or expectations to the contrary. The phrase is usedfor emphasis, meaning, no one could dispute, find fault with, or question, the orthodoxies to be found in Americanhistory textbooks.

Notehow FitzGerald uses three synonyms—“dispute,” “find fault with,” and“question”—to express the same idea. 

 

41.  Therewas, it seemed, no point in comparing these visions with reality, since theywere the public truth and were thus quite irrelevant to what existed and towhat anyone privately believed. (Para. 7)

FitzGeralddiscusses why the ideas put forward in the 1950s history textbooks seemedself-contained. She argues that people hardly thought about questioning thetruthfulness of the textbooks because the textbooks seemed to occupy a separaterealm. It didn’t matter that what was written in the textbooks was differentfrom what actually happened or from what people believed.

 

42.   They were—or so it seemed—the permanentexpression of mass culture in America. (Para. 7)

so it seemed: itappeared that it was true

“They” refers to the orthodoxies contained in the history textbooks.

Translation:

至少看起来是这样，这些观点是美国大众文化的永恒体现。

 

43.   But now the texts have changed, and withthem the country that American children are growing up into. (Para. 8)

Thisis the transition and topic sentence of Para. 8.  In the earlier paragraphs, FitzGeralddiscussed the features of school history textbooks  in the 1950s; now she is taking up the issue of textbooks ofthe1970s. FitzGerald also indicates the importance of history textbooks increating a certain image of  America.

44.   The society that was once uniform is nowa patchwork of rich and poor, old and young, men and women, blacks, whites,Hispanics, and Indians. (Para. 8)

patchwork: a thingcomposed of many different elements so as to appear variegated. Example: apatchwork of cribbed ideas

Patchwork originallymeans “needlework in which small pieces of cloth in different designs, colors,or textures are sewn together.”

 

45.   The system that ran so smoothly by meansof the Constitution under the guidance of benevolent conductor Presidents isnow a rattletrap affair. (Para. 8)

1)      by means of: with the helpof; by the agency of; through

Examples:

We crossed the stream by means of a log.

He succeeded by means of sheer persistence.

2)      rattletrap: an old orrickety vehicle

3)      benevolent: well-meaningand kindly; desiring to help others

4)      Thissentence contains a metaphor, comparing the political, economic and socialsystem of the country to a train, and presidents to the conductor.

5)     Translation: 过去依据宪法有章可循，依靠总统仁慈善为，国家运转顺利，但是现在整个体系都变得破旧不堪，岌岌可危。

 

46.   The past is no highway to the present;it is a collection of issues and events that do not fit together and that leadin no single direction. (Para. 8)

Paraphrase: The past isnot a direct course to the present; things do not run smoothly andprogressively any more. Instead, the past is a collection of scatteredissues and events. They do not forman organic whole orprogress in any single direction.

 

47.   The word “progress” has been replaced bythe word “change”: children, the modern texts insist, should learn history sothat they can adapt to the rapidchange takingplace around them. (Para. 8)

Progressindicates a movement toward a goal or to a further or higher stage. It alsoindicates development in a direction considered more beneficial than andsuperior to the previous level. It indicates advancement and improvement.Change, on theother hand,implies difference, transformation,modification, and alteration.

 

48.   History is proceeding in spite of us.(Para. 8)

proceed: (of an action)be carried on or continued.

Synonyms:Advance, move on, proceed allimply movement forward. Advanceapplies to forward movement, especially toward an objective: to advance to aplatform. Proceed emphasizesmovement, as from one place to another, and often implies continuing after ahalt: to proceed on one’s journey. Moveon is similar in meaning to proceed; it does not, however, imply a definitegoal: The crowd was told to move on.

in spite of: without beingaffected by the particular factor mentioned

Paraphrase: No matter whatwe think or do, history is moving forward. History is not adapting to us. Weneed to adapt to the way history develops.

 

49.   The present, which was once portrayed inthe concluding chapters as a peaceful haven of scientific advances andPresidential inaugurations, is now a tangle of problems: race problems, urbanproblems, foreign-policy problems, problems of pollution, poverty, energydepletion, youthful rebellion, assassination, and drugs. (Para. 8)

1)      a tangle of: a confusedmass of something twisted together; a confused or complicated state; a muddle.

Examples: a tangle of golden hair; a tangle ofcontradictory statements

2)      Themain structure of the sentence is “The present is now a tangle of problems.” Itincludes a comparison between how history books end in the present (a tangle ofproblems) and ended thepast (a peaceful haven of scientific advances and Presidential inaugurations).

3)     Translation: 以前的历史书在末尾章节总是会提到科学进步和总统大选，把当代社会描绘成宁静美好的天堂，但是如今的历史书总是以各种各样的问题结束：种族问题、城市问题、外交问题、以及污染、贫困、能源枯竭、青春叛逆、暗杀、毒品等等。

 

50.   Some books illustrate these problemsdramatically. (Para. 8)

FitzGeralddiscusses two different ways in which history textbooks write about“problems”: “some books illustratethese problems dramatically”; “other books present current problems lessstarkly.”

 

51.   One, for instance, contains a picture ofa doll half buried in a mass of untreated sewage; the caption reads, “Are we indanger of being overwhelmed by the products of our society, and wastage createdby their production?” (Para. 8)

untreated: not preserved,improved, or altered by the use of a chemical, physical, or biological agent.Example: Untreated sewageis pumped directlyinto the sea

caption: a title orbrief explanation appended to an article, illustration, cartoon, or poster

wastage: something thatis wasted; waste materials.

Example:The river was befouled by factory waste ( or wastage).

Synonyms:waste and wastage are to some extent interchangeable, but many people thinkthat wastage should not be used torefer to loss resulting from human carelessness, inefficiency, etc.: a waste (not a wastage) of time/money/effort, etc.

 

52.   Two books show the same picture of anold black woman sitting in a straight chair in a dingy room, her hands foldedin graceful resignation; the surrounding text discusses the problems faced bythe urban poor and by the aged who depend on Social Security. (Para. 8)

dingy: of a dark,dull, or dirty color or aspect; lacking brightness or freshness

graceful: if a person’sbehavior is graceful, it is polite, kind, and pleasant, especially in difficultsituations

Examples:

Aubreycould think of no graceful way to escape Corbet’s company.

Hewas charming, cheerful, and graceful under pressure.

resignation: an accepting,unresisting attitude, state, etc.; submission; acquiescence

Examples:

tomeet one’s fate with resignation

Therewas no grief in his expression, only deep resignation.

her hands folded in graceful resignation: 她双手交叉，得体却无奈

 

53.   Other books present current problemsless starkly. (Para. 8)

starkly: harshly,unpleasantly, grimly

Example:The drafting committee presented the issue starkly and brutally.

 

54.   They have today the means to conquerpoverty, disease, and ignorance. (Para. 8)

means: availableresources

conquer: gain a victoryover, surmount, overcome

Example:to conquer one’s fear

Defeat, conquer, overcome, subdue implygaining a victory or control over an opponent. Defeat suggests beating or frustrating: to defeat an enemy inbattle. Conquer implies finallygaining control over, usually after a series of efforts or against systematicresistance: to conquer a country, one’s inclinations. Overcome emphasizes surmounting difficulties in prevailing over anantagonist: to overcome opposition, bad habits. Subdue means to conquer so completely that resistance is broken: tosubdue a rebellious spirit.

 

55.  Suchpassages have a familiar ring. (Para. 8)

have a familiar ring:sound or seem as though one has already heard of something.

Example:That story has a familiar ring; I’m sure I’ve read it before.

Paraphrase: Suchparagraphs remind us of an earlier version of how technological advances werelooked upon as the magic bullet for all sorts of problems.

 

56.  Amidall the problems, the deus ex machina of science still doddersaround in the gloaming of pious hope. (Para. 8)

pious hope: a wish or hopethat is unlikely to be fulfilled

FitzGeralduses personification to describe how people have placed unrealistic hope in thepower of science—science lingers on as “a god from a machine” that…though unrealistichopes for its efficacy persist.

Paraphrase: Americansstill look upon science as an easy solution to all the problems, although weall know this is a hope that is unlikely to be fulfilled. 

Translation: 在问题面前，美国人仍然希望科学之神能够从天而降，神奇地解决一切问题，但这样的愿望虚无缥缈、不切实际。

 

57.  Evenmore surprising than the emergence of problems is the discovery that the greatunity of the texts has broken. (Para. 9)

Thisis the transitional sentence, introducing another change that FitzGerald hasobserved in 1970s history textbooks.

Paraphrase: Not only doproblems replace progress, but there is also no longer a unifying message thatthe texts seek to convey.

 

58.  Whereasin the fifties all texts represented the same political view, current textsfollow no pattern of orthodoxy. (Para. 9)

Paraphrase: Current textsdiffer from texts in the 1950s in that they do not follow a generally accepteddoctrine.

 

59.  Somebooks, for instance, portray civil-rights legislation as a series of actionstaken by a wise, paternal government; others convey some suggestion of thesocial upheaval involved and make mention of such people as Stokely Carmichaeland Malcolm X. In some books, the Cold War has ended; in others, it continues.(Para. 9)

1)      paternal: fatherly;relating to or characteristic of a father, esp. in showing affection,encouragement, etc. Paternal suggestsa kindly, proprietary attitude: paternal interest

2)      a wise, paternal government: agovernment that makes the rightdecisions for the people, just like a father who takes good care of his children.

3)      upheaval: strong orviolent change or disturbance, as in a society

Example: the upheaval of war

4)      FitzGeralduses two examples, civil rights legislation and the Cold War, to show thathistory textbooks of the 1970s present a spectrum of political interpretationsof historical events. She observes that the books differ in their views on whatbrought about thecivil rights legislation. Some credit it to a wise and responsible government;others to radical civil rights activists. The assessment of the Cold War isalso different: some argue that it has ended while others contend that it isstill there.

 

60.  Thepolitical diversity in the books is matched by a diversity of pedagogicalapproach. (Para. 10)

Thisis a transitional sentence, introducing a second aspect of the change to be found in  1970s textbooks. In thisparagraph, FitzGerald explains that there is a diversity of methodologicalapproaches now, from more traditional narrative histories to the newer“discovery” or “inquiry” texts. These texts differ from traditional narrativehistories in a number of ways: 1) they deal with a few specific issues inAmerican history; 2) they include both primary and secondary sources thatpresent different perspectives and possibly conflicting views; 3) they providethe student with background information, explanatory notes, and a series ofquestions so that they cancritically interpret and reflect on history.

 

61.  Inaddition to the traditional narrative histories, with their endless streams offacts, there are so-called “discovery,” or “inquiry” texts, which deal with alimited number of specific issues in American history. (Para. 10)

narrative history:narrative history tells a story: when, where, and why a certain event occurred,its larger significance or context, and who the important participants were.Traditional narrative history focuses on the chronological order of history. Itis event-drivenand tends to center upon individuals, actions, and intentions.

stream: a continuousseries or succession

Example:a stream of cars

 

62.  Thesetexts do not pretend to cover the past; they focus on particular topics, suchas “stratification in Colonial society” or “slavery and the AmericanRevolution,” and illustrate them with documents from primary and secondarysources. (Para. 10)

illustrate: tomake clear; explain

primary sources: aprimary source is a document or physical object which was written or createdduring the time under study. These sources were present during an experience ortime period and offer an insider view of a particular event. Some types ofprimary sources include: original documents, creative works, relics orartifacts.

secondarysources:a secondary source interprets and analyzes primary sources. These sources areone or more steps removed from the events. Secondary sources may have pictures,quotes or graphics of primary sources in them. Some types of secondary sourcesinclude publications such as newspaper and magazine articles, monographs, commentaries,encyclopedias, etc.

 

63.   Thechapters in these books amount to something like case studies, in that theyinclude testimony from people with different perspectives or conflicting viewson a single subject. (Para. 10)

amount to: to be equal inmeaning, value, or effect

 

64.   Thequestions are the heart of the matter, for when they are carefully selectedthey force students to think much as historians think: to define the point ofview of the speaker, analyze the ideas presented, question the relationshipbetween events, and so on. (Para. 10)

heart: the central,vital, or main part; real meaning; essence; core

point of view:standpoint; the way in which something is viewed or considered

to define the point of view of thespeaker, analyze the ideas presented, question the relationship between events:(pay attention to the collocations) 明确说话人的角度、分析提出的观点、质疑事件之间的关系

 

65.   Onetext, for example, quotes Washington, Jefferson, and John Adams on the questionof foreign alliances and then asks, “What did John Adams assume that theinternational situation would be after the American Revolution? What didWashington’s attitude toward the French Alliance seem to be? How do you accountfor his attitude?” Finally, it asks, “Should a nation adopt a policy towardalliances and cling to it consistently, or should it vary its policies towardother countries as circumstances change?” (Para. 10)

FitzGeraldillustrates how questions in the inquiry texts work. The text first asks thestudent to grasp each person’s arguments, and understand how they came up withthese ideas. It then asks the student to reflect on these arguments and respondto them.

account for: to givesatisfactory reasons or an explanation for

cling to: to remainattached, as to an idea, hope, memory, etc.

Example:Despite unfavorable  predictions, the candidate clung to the beliefthat he would be elected.

 

66.   Inthese books, history is clearly not a list of agreed-upon facts which must beordered by the historians. (Para. 10)

1)      Thisis a summary of how “discovery” and “inquiry” texts are different fromnarrative histories. With the new texts, students learn to think as historiansinstead of memorizing “historical facts” and a chronology that historians haveput together.

2)      order: to put or keepin order; organize; arrange

3)      Paraphrase: In thesebooks, history is clearly not a sequenced listing, by historians, of thingsthat happened.

 

67.   Inmatters of pedagogy, as in matters of politics, there are not two sharplydifferentiated categories of books; rather, there is a spectrum. (Para. 11)

1)      Afterdiscussing in detail “discovery”, or “inquiry”,texts in the previous paragraph,  FitzGerald explains that, just asthere is a variety of political approaches in 1970s history textbooks, there issimilarly a variety of pedagogical approaches. 

2)      matter: a situation,state, or affair事情、状况、问题

Examples:

It is clear that she wanted to discusssome private matter.

Until the matter is resolved, theathletes will be ineligible to compete.

3)      spectrum: a broad rangeof varied but related ideas or objects, the individual features of which tendto overlap so as to form a continuous series or sequence系列、范围

Examples:

the spectrum of political beliefs

The term “special needs” covers a widespectrum of problems

4)      Paraphrase: Rather thandiametrically differentteaching methods, there is a broadrange of pedagogical approaches, just as there is a variety of politicalviewpoints.

 

68.  Politically,the books run from moderate left to moderate right; pedagogically, they runfrom the traditional history sermon, through a middle ground of narrative textswith inquiry-style questions and of inquiry texts with long stretches ofnarrative, to the most rigorous of case-study books. (Para. 11)

1)      Inthis sentence FitzGerald explains what she means by “spectrum.”

2)      “Left” and “right” refer to the left-right political spectrum, which is asystem of classifying political positions, ideologies and parties. Left-wing politics are politicalpositions or activities that accept or support social equality, often inopposition to social hierarchy and social inequality. It typically involves aconcern for those in society who are perceived as disadvantaged relative toothers and an assumption that there are unjustified inequalities that need tobe reduced or abolished. Right-wingpolitics are political positions or activities that accept or supportsocial hierarchy or social inequality. Those affiliated with the Right considersocial hierarchy and social inequality as either inevitable, natural, normal,or desirable, typically justifying this position on the basis of natural law ortradition. The moderate left/right describes adherence to views leaning to theleft/right but closer to the center on the left-right political spectrum.

3)      sermon: any serioustalk on behavior, responsibility, etc., esp. a long, tedious one

4)      middle ground: anintermediate position between opposing ideas, conflicting viewpoints, etc., bywhich reconciliation or compromise may be achieved

Example: Negotiations have failed toestablish any middle ground

5)      stretch: an unbrokenlength, tract, or space; continuous extent or distance

Example: a long stretch of beach

 

69.   Whatis common to the current texts—and makes all of them different from those ofthe fifties—is their engagement with the social sciences. (Para. 11)

Paraphrase: Despite thebroad spectrum of ideological viewpoints and methodological approaches, the1970s textbooks share a common feature—the involvement of social scientificconcepts in the writing of history. This characteristic sets them part from theearlier texts.

engage: to draw into;involve

Example:to engage him in conversation

 

70.   Ineighth-grade histories, the “concepts” are the very foundation stones ofvarious elementary-school social-studies series. (Para. 11)

concept: in the socialsciences, concepts represent mental images, constructs, or word pictures thathelp people to arrange and classify fragmented and isolated facts andinformation. A concept is usually abstract, as opposed to concrete. It is aproduct of the analysis and synthesis of facts and experiences rather than adefinition to be learned. It is constantly subject to change and expansion ofmeaning.

foundation stone: thebasic, important thing that the existence or success of something depends on

Example:education, training, research and development are the foundation stones of thefuture.

 

71.  The1970 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich series, for example, boasts in its preface of “ahorizontal base or ordering of conceptual schemes” to match its “vertical armof behavioral themes.” (Para. 11)

1)      Conceptsand themes serve as content organizers for the vast amount of informationpeople encounter every day.HarcourtBrace Jovanovich, a major textbook publisher, proudly announces in the prefaceof its 1970s series that it uses a horizontal axis of conceptual systems and avertical axis of behavioral themes—patterns of what people think, decide anddo—to explain history. “Role,” “status,” and “culture” are a few examples ofsocial scientific concepts. 

2)      boast of: to speak withpride

Example: He boasted of his family’swealth.

3)      horizontal: flat or level水平

4)      scheme: a body or  system of related doctrines, theories, etc.

Example: a conceptual scheme in sociology.

Note other usages of “scheme”:

Tourists can be vulnerable to scams andschemes of all kinds.

They claimed that their opponents werescheming against them.

We realize that we are infinitely smallin the scheme of things.

5)      vertical: upright垂直

6)      arm: a long thinpart of an object that sticks out from the main part

 

72.    Someof them stage debates between eminent social scientists in roped-off sectionsof the text; some include essays on economics or sociology; some containpictures and short biographies of social scientists of both sexes and ofdiverse races. (Para. 11)

stage: torepresent, produce, or exhibit on or as if on a stage

Example:The drama class staged a play during Christmas vacation.

eminent:high in station, rank, or repute; prominent; distinguished

Example:eminent statesmen

Synonyms:Famous, celebrated, eminent, distinguished refer to someone orsomething widely and favorably known. Famousis the general word: a famous lighthouse. Celebratedoriginally referred to something commemorated, but now usually refers tosomeone or something widely known for conspicuous merit, services, etc.: acelebrated writer. Eminent implieshigh standing among one’s contemporaries, especially in one’s own profession orcraft: an eminent physician. Distinguishedadds to eminent the idea of honors conferred more or less publicly: adistinguished scientist.

Notethat eminent should not be confusedwith immanent (remaining within;inherent) or imminent (likely tooccur at any moment; impending).

roped-off:enclosed, partitioned, or marked off with a rope or ropes

73.   Manybooks seem to accord social scientists a higher status than AmericanPresidents. (Para. 11)

accord: to grant;bestow

Example:to accord due praise

 

74.  Quiteas striking as these political and pedagogical alterations is the change in thephysical appearance of the texts. (Para. 12)

Thisis a transitional sentence. FitzGerald focuses on the physical appearance ofthe texts in this paragraph, particularly their design and illustrations. Notehow FitzGerald handles comparisonand contrast, paying  particular attention to words and phrases suchas by contrast, however, instead of, as for, etc.

alteration: a change,modification, or adjustment

Example:There has been an alteration in our plans.

 

75.  Theschoolbooks of the fifties showed some effort in the matter of design: they hadmaps, charts, cartoons, photography, and an occasional four-color picture tobreak up the columns of print. (Para. 12)

four-color: cyan(青蓝),magenta(洋红),yellow, and key (black), which are typically used in color printing

 

76.  Butbeside the current texts they look as naïve as Soviet fashion magazines. (Para.12)

naïve: having ormarked by a simple, unaffectedly direct style reflecting little or no formaltraining or technique

Paraphrase: The 1950sdesign was simple, direct, and unsophisticated. The illustrations looked asold-fashioned asthose in Sovietfashion magazines.

 

77.  Theprint in the fifties books is heavy and far too black, the colors muddy. (Para.12)

Notethe simple words heavy and muddy take on different meanings in thissentence.

heavy:coarse or broad

Examples:a heavy line; heavy features

muddy: (ofa color) not clear or pure; dull or brownish

Example:The paint hasturned a muddy color.

 

78.  Thephotographs are conventional news shots—portraits of Presidents inthree-quarter profile, posed “action” shots of soldiers. (Para. 12)

shot: theact of taking a single photograph

three-quarter profile: arepresentation of a head or figure posed about halfway between front andprofile views

profile: the outline orcontour of the human face, especially the face viewed from one side

posed “action” shots of soldiers:pictures of soldiers in combat (in “action”) that were actually staged

 

79.  Theother illustrations tend to be Socialist-realist-style drawings (there are alot of hefty farmers with hoes in the Colonial-period chapters) or incrediblyvulgar made-for-children paintings of patriotic events. (Para.12)

hefty: big andstrong, powerful, muscular

Synonyms:robust, husky, burly, stalwart

vulgar: characterizedby ignorance of or lack of good taste; of poor artistic quality

 

80.  Onepainting shows Columbus standing in full court dress on a beach in the NewWorld from a perspective that could have belonged only to the Arawaks. (Para.12)

court dress: the formalcostume required to be worn at a royal court on ceremonial and other occasions

 

81.  Bycontrast, the current texts are paragons of sophisticated modern design. (Para.12)

paragon: a model orpattern of excellence

Examples:a paragon of virtue; a paragon of neatness, efficiency, and reliability

 

82.  Theylook not like People or Family Circle but, rather, like Architectural Digest or Vogue. (Para. 12)

Theillustrations in 1970s history textbooks are as modern, glamorous, andsophisticated as those in magazines of interior design and fashion, far superior to thosein magazines featuring celebritystories and women’sinterest articles. 

 

83.  ...The amount ofspace given to illustrations is far greater than it was in the fifties; infact, in certain “slow-learner” books the pictures far outweigh the text inimportance. (Para. 12)

slow-learner: a term thatpeople use to describe a student who has the ability to learn necessaryacademic skills but at rate and depth below average same-agepeers.

outweigh: to exceed invalue, importance, influence, etc.

 

84.  However,the illustrations have a much greater historical value. (Para. 12)

Illustrationsplay a much more important role in 1970s texts. They are used as primarysources that convey informationabout the historical period.

 

85.  Insteadof made-up paintings or anachronistic sketches, there are cartoons,photographs, and paintings drawn from the periods being treated. (Para. 12)

Paraphrase: Whereas 1950stextbooks were full of falsely fabricated paintings or sketches of events,people, or things that could not haveexisted, 1970s texts include cartoons,photographs, and paintings drawn from the periods under discussion.

treat: to deal with,as in writing or speaking; discuss

 

86.  Asfor the twentieth-century chapters, they are adorned with the contents of amodern-art museum. (Para. 12)

adorn: to decorate oradd beauty to, as by ornaments

Paraphrase: Thetwentieth-century chapters are full of works of contemporary art.

 

87.   Theuse of all this art and high-quality design contains some irony. (Para. 13)

Thisis a transitional sentence. FitzGerald is going to point out an odd orunexpected result of showcasing art and high-quality design in history texts.

irony: a combinationof circumstances or a result that is the opposite of what is or might beexpected or considered appropriate有讽刺意味的情形

 

88.   Thenineteenth-century photographs of child laborers or urban slum apartments areso beautiful that they transcend their subjects. (Para. 13)

urban slum: a heavilypopulated informalurban settlementcharacterized by substandard housing and squalor.

transcend: to rise aboveor go beyond; overpass; exceed

Examples:to transcend the limits of thought; Kindness transcends courtesy. 

Paraphrase: Thenineteenth-century photographs of child laborers and urban substandard housingare so beautiful that they take readers beyond the immediate ugliness of their subjects, obsuring criticalissues that readers need to pay attention to.

 

89.   Tolook at them, or at the Victor Gatto painting of the Triangleshirtwaist-factory fire, is to see not misery or ugliness but an art object.(Para. 13)

Here, FitzGerald gives an example of  how beauty and art go beyond the message thatthe painters/textbook writers want to present.The aesthetic value of theillustrations is such that readers tend to overlook  the pain, misery, and darkness that theillustrations are intended to convey.

 

90.   Inthe modern chapters, the contrast between style and content is just as great:the color photographs of junk yards or polluted rivers look as enticing asGourmet’s photographs of food. (Para. 13)

enticing: alluring;leading on by exciting hope or desire

Gourmet: (1941-2009) amonthly U.S. magazine devoted to food and wine, or “good living” on a widerscale.

 

91.   Thebook that is perhaps the most stark in its description of modern problems illustrates the horrors ofnuclear testing with a pretty Ben Shahn picture of the Bikini explosion, andthe potential for global ecological disaster with a color photograph of theplanet swirling in  its mantle of white clouds. (Para. 13)

swirl: to move with atwisting, whirling motion

mantle: something thatcovers, envelops, or conceals; a layer of something that covers the surface

Examples:

Theparks and squares looked grim under a mantle of soot and ash.

Theearth bore a thick green mantle of vegetation.

 

92.   Whereasin the nineteen-fifties the texts were childish in the sense that they werenaïve and clumsy, they are now childish in the sense that they arepolymorphous-perverse. American history is not dull any longer; it is asensuous experience. (Para. 13)

clumsy: awkwardly doneor made

sensuous: readilysusceptible through the senses; enjoying the pleasures of sensation

Paraphrase:The 1950s history textbooks weresimple and immature, but the 1970s texts are unconventional and uncivilized, bombarding all of thesenses in an undiscriminating fashion. American historyis no longer boring; it is so appealing to eye, ear, and touch  that it distractsstudents’ attention from the historyitself.

 

93.   Thesurprise that adults feel in seeing the changes in history texts must come fromthe lingering hope that there is somewhere out there, an objective truth.(Para. 14)

1)      Thelast two paragraphs are the conclusion of this essay. FitzGerald explains whythere is such a shock when adultsseethe changes in history texts, why history texts undergo dramatic changes everyfew years, and what the rewriting of history means to thechildren who study the texts.

2)      lingering: continuing toexist for a long time, often much longer than expected

3)      Translation: 成人对历史教材的修改感到惊讶，多半是因为他们心里还残存一丝希望，那就是这世界上存在客观事实。

 

94.   Allof us children of the twentieth century know, or should know, that there are noabsolutes in human affairs, and thus there can be no such thing as perfectobjectivity. (Para. 14)

absolute: a rule or principlethat is believed to be true, right, or relevant in all situations

no such thing as: thesituation you are talking about does not exist

 

95.   Weknow that each historian in some degree creates the world anew and that allhistory is in some degree contemporary history. (Para. 14)

Paraphrase: Weknow that each historian to some extent recreates the world in a new anddifferent way. We also know that to some extent all history reflectscontemporary perspectives and viewpoints. In other words, historians write backfrom where they stand.

 

96.    Butbeyond this knowledge there is still a hope for some reliable authority, forsome fixed stars in the universe. (Para. 14)

fixed stars:celestial objects that do not seem to move in relation to other stars of thenight sky. “Some fixed stars in the universe” refers to something that does notchange, a meaning similar to “reliable authority.”

Paraphrase:Although we all know there is no perfect objectivity, we still hope that there are some kind of relativelystable rules or theories that we can hold onto.

 

97.   Thetexts, with their impersonal voices, encourage this hope, and therefore it isparticularly disturbing to see how they change, and how fast. (Para. 14)

Paraphrase: The texts,with their objective voices, foster the hope that there exists some kind oftruth and that what children learn in their history books will never change.Because of thisidea, it is especially upsetting to observe that history textbooks change notonly dramatically but also very fast.

 

98.   Slipperyhistory! (Para. 15)

slippery:liable to change; unstable.

 

99.    Notevery generation but every few years the content of American-history books forchildren changes appreciably. (Para. 15)

appreciably:noticeably, considerably

Paraphrase:American history books get rewritten frequently. Every few years, rather thanevery generation, a new version emerges on the market.

 

100.  Schoolbooks arenot, like trade books, written and left to their fate. (Para. 15)

Translation:

和大众读物不同，教科书不会写出来然后任其自生自灭。

 

101.   Tostay in step with the cycles of “adoption” in school districts across thecountry, the publishers revise most of their old texts or substitute new onesevery three or four years. (Para. 15)

1)      Inthe United States, local school districts have authority over the selection oftextbooks. Every three or four years, they review their decisions. In order toappeal to the big school districts, publishers revise old texts and introducenew ones.

2)      in step: in harmony orconformity with

3)      adopt: to select as arequired textbook

 

102.   Inthe process of revision, they not only bring history up to date but makechanges—often substantial changes—in the body of the work. (Para. 15)

Paraphrase: In the processof revision, the publishers not only add what has taken place since the lastedition was written but also change, often considerably, the previously written parts ofthe texts.

 

103.   Historybooks for children are thus more contemporary than any other form of history.(Para. 15)

Paraphrase: Compared withother forms of history, history textbooks for children more quickly reflect thelatest developments inhistorical research.

 

104.    How should it be otherwise? (Para. 15)

Paraphrase: What are theother options?

 

105.   Inhistory, the system is reasonable—except that each generation of children readsonly one generation of schoolbooks. (Para. 15)

Paraphrase: The systemthat history textbooks reflect the latest developments in historical research and writing isreasonable, but the problem is that each generation of children reads only oneversion of American history.

 

106.   Thetransient history is those children’s history forever--their particular versionof America. (Para. 15)

transient: lasting only ashort time or constantly changing

Synonyms:temporary, transient, transitoryrefer to something that is not lasting or permanent. Temporary implies an arrangement established with no thought ofcontinuance but with the idea of its beingchanged soon: a temporary structure. Transientdescribes that which is in the process of passing by, and which will thereforelast or stay only a short time: a transient condition. Transitory describes an innate characteristic by which a thing, byits very nature, lasts only a short time: Life is transitory.

Paraphrase: The historythat the children have learned in school decides how they understand theircountry and that particular perspective will stay with them forever.

Translation: 这个短暂存在的版本就成为孩子们永恒不变的历史，决定了他们如何理解自己的国家。