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Lots of Textbook Clean-up Needed

Reader comment on item: Middle East Studies, Changing for the Better

Submitted by Chris (United States), Aug 8, 2009 at 10:51

I hope this new cadre of Middle East Studies scholars will take a serious look at the elementary, high school, and college textbooks that have been released during the "ivory towers on sand" era and do some major clean-up. A case in point is the 7th grade textbook, "History Alive - The Medieval World and Beyond," which devotes 55 pages to Islam (mostly positive) and only 16 pages to Christianity (mostly negative). Judaism and Buddhism are hardly mentioned. With 78.5 percent of Americans belonging to various Christian faiths, and with Islam ranking behind Judaism and Buddhism in population, this seems like a major distortion in emphasis.

The next positive step would be to wrestle Middle East Studies departments from their financial dependence on endowments from the Middle East, which generally come with "strings attached." Academic studies should be completely independent, which is hardly the case in this field.

Submitting....

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Reader comments (12) on this item

Title Commenter Date Thread
Modern studies [85 words]Ron GeorgeJul 5, 2011 05:12187031
The alternative [38 words]Yuval Brandstetter MDAug 12, 2009 10:57160101
Ratchet wheel [35 words]UgriAug 12, 2009 04:45160080
1Despite "Flood of...Veterans", Drought in Islamic Studies [867 words]IslamicStudiesUSAAug 11, 2009 17:57160068
Islamic studies.... [60 words]donvanJun 9, 2010 10:52160068
What is the point... [100 words]donvanJun 12, 2010 15:07160068
Veterans entering academic programs. [69 words]M.D.Aug 9, 2009 16:19159914
New students of Middle Eastern Studies [90 words]David HaydenAug 9, 2009 11:33159891
On the mark [60 words]DanAug 9, 2009 10:02159887
The improved GI is probably responsible for more GIs making it academically now [124 words]Mark JamesAug 8, 2009 15:52159850
Lots of Textbook Clean-up Needed [148 words]ChrisAug 8, 2009 10:51159842
I second your motion. [25 words]LynnAug 12, 2009 08:49159842

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