In a misguided attempt to promote patriotism, textbooks in Japan and the United States either ignore or sanitize the true story of how additional land became part of their respective nations. If the purpose of teaching history is to create critical thinking, this policy is counterproductive.
That's why it's encouraging to learn that new government guidelines in Japan will require high-school textbooks for fiscal 2017 to devote 60 percent more space to descriptions about disputed territories. That would include, for example, Takeshima, claimed by Japan but controlled by South Korea, which also lays claim to it, and four Russian-held islands off the coast of Hokkaido, referred to collectively as the Northern Territories.
Until the education ministry revised its curricular manual in January 2014 to teach about territorial disputes, students were largely ignorant about the history involving this issue. How could they not be when textbooks failed to honestly address acquisitions? After all, students believe that what appears in textbooks is the absolute and entire truth, since a revision by private-sector publishers takes place every four years.