History Education in Lebanon and the Borders of the Nation

This study shows that widely used history textbooks in Lebanon are more standardized and censored than in most liberal democratic countries, and relatively similar in form and content to textbooks from Syria and Iraq. A diversity of historical narratives has progressively converged into one dominant narrative which entails a standard definition of the 'self'. In contrast, the 'other' is defined through the exclusion of religious groups considered exogenous and ethnicities considered inferior. In addition, women are marginalized. Surprisingly, the textbooks affiliated with Hezbollah, a Shiite militia financed by the Iranian regime, depart to a certain extent from this definition. While most previous research on Lebanese history textbooks has focused on the diverging narratives of religious communities, this study views these textbooks as the outcome of a tension between two major forces: educational traditions, on the one hand, and contemporary politics, on the other.