Content Analysis Of The Chinese Section In American High School History Textbooks

In this paper, the author takes two different versions of high school textbooks about world history as examples to analyze how American middle school history textbooks interpret Chinese history. One is published by McDougall (English original) and another kind is by Prentice Hall (in the translation of the elephant version). Based on the clue of American textbooks, Chinese history can be divided into three periods. They are ancient Chinese history, recent Chinese history and modern Chinese history respectively. The body of the paper mainly analyzes and discusses the Chinese politics, economics, ideology and culture and so on of each period.The ancient Chinese history is talked about first of all in the American textbook. In this part, the author discusses the Chinese politics, economics, culture, social structure and so on. As a result, the characteristics of Chinese history can be shown as follows:in the aspect of politics, attaching more importance to great effect of natural environment on Chinese civilization and frequent replacement of ancient Chinese dynasties; as for economics, thinking highly of great effect of ancient Chinese science and technology on Chinese society and exchange between China and the West; on the ideology and culture, focusing on the origin of Chinese philosophy and the development of Chinese Confucian thought; in terms of social structure, paying more attention to the change of Chinese class structure and position of women in ancient China.The paper in chapter two analyzes recent Chinese history of the American history textbook in high school from the aspect of politics, ecomomics, culture, military diplomacy and so on. In politics, the textbook mainly introduces the actions of Qing Government, the struggles of Chinese people, the development of the Chinese Communist Party and the relation between China and the West. The American textbook shows China of this period is under economic transformation. In the aspect of ideology and culture, the change of thoughts and ideas and some new trends of literature are concerned more. As to the military diplomacy, it is thought that China was in a passive position at that time in the textbook.In chapter three the author discusses modern Chinese history in the American textbook from politics, economics, diplomacy and so on. In this period, the expression of "two Chinas" is mentioned and the construction and development of democraticpolitics is also noticed; all kinds of setbacks and later Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening up policy are investigated; in diplomacy, the textbook mentions the relations between China and the West after the foundation of new China and some achievements in foreign relations, such as attaching more importance to the relations with neighboring countries, actively participating in WTO activities and so on.