Question

Textbook authors emphasize American humanitarian efforts like the Peace Corps and avoid telling students about American intervention in foreign countries to support or overthrow leaders. False True

Answer 1

True

Most prominent historians believe that America has always practiced a foreign policy designed to preserve its own interests, even when doing so necessitates violence or corruption.

But high school textbooks argue nothing of the kind: they present the U.S. as a moral agent that has always prioritized peace and democracy around the world. Almost every textbook mentions the Peace Corps—an admirable, but relatively insignificant government program designed to promote peace abroad—as an example of American generosity.

Textbooks rarely mention America’s large corporations, which have sometimes influenced the federal government to destabilize other countries and install brutal pro-American dictators. Indeed, textbooks rarely mention the post-World War II rise of multinational corporations at all, even though such corporations have exerted a profound influence on the modern world, often promoting war and violence abroad in order to further their interests.