Contributing chapter to a book to be published by Palgrave Macmillan

I contributed a chapter on the new and notorious Texas teaching standards for the Civil War and Reconstruction content in those standards for a book to be published by Palgrave Macmillan. The title is, "Politics and the History Curriculum: The Struggle over Standards in Texas and the Nation."

You can read about the book at this web page:

http://www.keitherekson.com/books/politics-and-the-history-curriculum/

The book is being released June 19, 2012. It can be ordered in advance at Amazon and Barnes & Nobles.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/politics-and-the-history-curriculum-keith-a-erekson/1107885815?ean=9781137008930&itm=8&usri=erekson

http://www.amazon.com/Politics-History-Curriculum-Struggle-Standards/dp/1137008938/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323817458&sr=1-3

My chapter is titled, "Neo-Confederate Ideology in the Texas History Standards."

You can download a flyer at this link:

http://www.keitherekson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/PHC_Flyer.pdf

With this chapter I hope to raise the issue of how the Civil War and Reconstruction is taught in our history classes in the schools and further influence on how these two topics are taught. It will also allow me to reach out to a new audience of the teachers of America.

One of the more interesting suggestions I made in the chapter is to teach the history of Cinco de Mayo as part of the history of the Civil War. As David Bautista-Hayes has shown in his academic articles and in his forthcoming book about Cinco de Mayo, it is an American holiday invented in California and an anti-Confederate holiday. Its history is interwoven as part of the history of the Civil War when the Civil War is viewed from a transnational perspective.

The book is titled, "Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition," and can be pre-ordered at:

http://www.amazon.com/El-Cinco-Mayo-American-Tradition/dp/0520272137/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325966969&sr=1-2