Japanese Government Pressures American Publisher to Delete Textbook Treatment of Wartime Sexual Slavery: An Interview with Herbert Ziegler

Extract

The debate on Japan's history of wartime sexual for political purposes.“ slavery (the ”Comfort Women“ issue) has heated up again, with the Japanese government extending its efforts to revise school textbooks to overseas publishers.

Last November, McGraw-Hill, publisher of a world history textbook, “Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past” Volume Two, by history professors Herbert Ziegler and Jerry Bentley, was contacted by Japan's New York Consulate General. The request: that two paragraphs (i.e., the entire entry) on the “Comfort Women” be deleted. On January 15, McGraw-Hill met with Japanese diplomats and refused to comply with the request, stating that the scholars had properly established the historical facts. Later that month, PM Abe Shinzo directly targeted the textbook in a parliamentary session, stating that he was “shocked” to learn that his government had “failed to correct the things it should have.”