Textbook publishers do back flips to avoid offense

In fact, if "The Language Police" has a serious flaw, it's that the conclusions are almost universally self-evident, likely to be reached by any sane person upon reading a small portion of her examples. Impressive as her evidence is in quantity, the book is not substantially improved by their sheer number: Having demonstrated that real censorship is taking place, she might do more to consider the societal implications.

Ravitch can seem as averse to taking intellectual risks as those publishers she condemns. But when she does, the insight emerges: "The goal of the language police is not just to stop us from using objectionable words but to stop us from having objectionable thoughts," she writes in the final chapter. "The language police believe that reality follows language usage."

If censors persist in their endeavors, those best prepared to endure the future may not be bookworms but dummies.

• Jonathon Keats is a member of the National Book Critics Circle board.

In "The Language Police," you document censorship of textbooks due to pressure from both the left and the right. Which side is gaining ground politically with children?

I don't think either is achieving its goals very effectively, because we live in a society where children can see, on TV and in the movies, anything that the tests and textbooks censor. School can't match that, especially since their bowdlerized materials are so dull.

Do these texts pose a significant danger?

Boredom is the greatest risk. To avoid controversy, publishers eliminate anything that might be potentially interesting.

I was at a Senate hearing recently, and David McCullough was talking about how having to read a history textbook these days is a punishment rather than a reward.

But cynicism is another major risk. If schools are teaching half-truths, and kids can figure that out - from what they see of the world on television and in the newspapers - they're simply not going to pay attention.

Haven't children always been exposed to sanitized information?

I think we've reached a higher level of censorship than even the history book manipulation that followed the Civil War.

Publishers have always exerted editorial control, but it's only in the past 20 years that bias guidelines were written down, bringing the censorship to a more intense and institutional level. Also textbook publishers have consolidated, in response to state textbook adoption.

Texas and California have led the way, and it's fundamentally a bad practice. It's like the government telling you what movies you should see.

What can be done?

The first step is public awareness. My goal is to build consensus. I'll continue speaking out, and I have a website, www.languagepolice.com, where people can send in additional examples of censorship.

But it isn't easy. I know firsthand how hard it is to identify what's missing - because it's not there.

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