Placing textbook revision in historical context, Faure examines the following five projects between 1947 and 1952: UNESCO, the most influential body in textbook talks after the Second World War; the International Occupational Department for Education of the World Movement of Trade Unions; the international historian conferences organized by the French military occupation government in Speyer, Germany, which provided a European forum to debate history education; the Franco-German textbook talks emerging from national societies such as the Consortium of German Teachers and the French Society of History and Geography Teachers; and lastly, the Franco-German textbook commission organized by the German Trade Union of Education and Science and the French National Education Federation (also a trade union). Faure argues that, in addition to diplomatic and institutional influences, the relationships between these forums also influenced the development of international textbook revision after 1945.

In the 1947-1950 period, three ideologically distinct centres were at work in international textbook revision. UNESCO, the World Trade Movement of Trade Unions, and the international conference of historians at Speyer for the most part developed independently of one another. Since UNESCO’s formation in 1946, textbook revision has been one of its central goals. In the late 1940s, UNESCO’s textbook work came under the broader domain of education, and its relationship with international understanding. UNESCO was particularly interested in the role of education in teaching the message that all people are equal, respect worthy, and have much in common. History education was thus seen as the development of intellectual skills as well as social skills. Textbook revision reflected these considerations. This was not only the work of historians, but was an interdisciplinary project, with historians, psychologists and educationists. Textbook work in this period was also characterized by a broader emphasis on history education – world, national, and local history – for both pedagogical and political purposes. It was to prepare pupils to act in an interdependent world. In addition, textbook revision was characterized by a revision methodology that argued for the analysis and improvement of textbooks of all humanities subjects, as well as related syllabi, via specific topics (such as the portrayal of international co-operation in the textbooks) rather than a general study. Finally, UNESCO’s interest in intergovernmental cultural agreements was used as a framework for textbook work. This made the textbook revision work of UNESCO particularly broad in comparison to the World Movement of Trade Unions and the Speyer historians.

The Département Professionnel International de l’Enseignement (DPIE) conducted the textbook work of the Fédération Syndicale Mondiale (FSM) up until their split in 1949. Faure explains that, though it is poorly documented, a French trade union in Germany, the Fédération de l’Éducation Nationale, produced a report (1947) on the education situation in Germany. The report suggested that German textbooks be examined in light of international cooperation. A commission with experts from Belgium, Czechoslovakia and France carried out this work the following year. Teachers, not specialists, examined all school subjects in a method of textbook revision based on general textbook examination. Although the DPIE had planned that textbook analysis would start with Germany and move to as many countries as possible, the split of the global trade union movement between East and West at the end of the 1940s compromised this work.

The third forum of international textbook work was the international historian conferences at Speyer between August 1948 and June 1950. Opinions varied on textbook revision and no recommendations were agreed upon. There was, however, a characteristic view of Europe and the “West” as frames of reference for textbook work, that distinguished it from the other two forums (UNESCO and the DPIE-FSM), and a suggestion for a European history textbook even emerged. This context was also distinct because it saw textbook revision as the work of history teachers and historians, rather than educational experts (the UNESCO approach) or teachers’ associations (the FSM approach). Faure points out that, while these three forums clearly set different courses for textbook revision and developed independently of one another, their differences were not irreconcilable.

Networking between these three forums was minimal, but in 1948 UNESCO established a delegate for textbook revision, through whom it sought to establish a network of international revision activists. Between 1950 and 1952, UNESCO emerged as the leader of international textbook revision, while the Speyer conferences ceased, and work of the FSM remained restricted by the split. Collaboration emerged between the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Lehrerverbande (AGDL) and the Société des Professeurs d’Histoire-Géographie (SPHG), which was largely influenced by the textbook revision ideology of the Speyer conferences of the preceding years. Furthermore, they conceived of their collaboration as European, not solely Franco-German. The influence of UNESCO’s view that history teaching should promote international cooperation and peace is evident in this work as well. In reaction to this, a second bilateral commission emerged in 1951 made up of German and French teachers’ trade unions. The Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft (GEW) and the Fédération de l’Éducation nationale (FEN) collaboration distanced itself from Speyer, UNESCO, and AGDL-SPHG work, and explicitly relied on the tradition of international textbook activities conducted by trade unions. At this time UNESCO was central in fostering international textbook dialogue and other bilateral commissions and conferences. These emphasized the importance of textbook revisions done by experts, rather than politicians, so as to protect international textbook dialogue from political interference. At this time psychologists and education specialists had a lesser role than historians. When, in 1954, UNESCO cut funding and organizational support for textbook vision, those already in the field continued the work, taking on roles as advisors to the Council of Europe, which gave this field attention from 1953 until the late 1950s.