History Textbook Controversies in Greece: History, Memory, and National Identity Conflicts

In Greece as in many other countries school history textbooks trigger intense reactions and controversies. This is the case for the new history textbook in Greece for the sixth class of primary schools which attempts to come to grips in a creative way with the Hellenocentrism of the history curriculum and to transcend its ethnocentrism regarding the Turkish speaking populations. Ethnocentric history and its options for ordering the past have for a century hindered the cultivation of historical judgement by the citizens of Greece.