Writing history in East Asia

My father was a high school history teacher, so I grew up hearing a lot of stories about such topics. I noticed that there are always conflicting views, and found that it was difficult to agree on almost anything. War time history seems especially painful, in every country. As Churchill once said, the Victor gets to write the history.

Now, a middle school history textbook, which has taken Korean, Chinese and Japanese scholars four years to write, has been published. The history textbook publication committee, comprised of some 50 teachers, history scholars and civic group members from the three nations, held a meeting to celebrate the publication in downtown Seoul yesterday, according to The Korea Times.

"We have made efforts to share the common ground of history in East Asia based on peace and humanitarianism, confirming that it is possible to respect each nation’s own view on history, while forming a common view of history from among the three countries," the committee said.

Publication of the textbook entitled History That Opens the Future, was initiated in March 2002 at an East Asia peace forum on history in Nanjing, China.

This seems like a step in the right direction for East Asia...