As for the teaching of history, Ms. Ravitch argues, the sort of censorship being practiced today by textbook publishers can result in all manner of distortions and simplifications. For instance, to insist that depictions of women as nurses, elementary-school teachers, clerks, secretaries, tellers and librarians perpetuate demeaning stereotypes is to minimize ''the barriers that women faced,'' and to pretend ''that the gender equality of the late 20th and early 21st centuries was a customary condition in the past.''
yc c on 02 Jun 10Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art is a show to overturn such expectations. It leads the visitor - a bit like some erstwhile explorer - on a creative adventure around the back of that flat piece of paper we think of as the world. Drawing on the finest collection of maps on this planet - the British Library has more than four million to choose from, the vast majority of which are only very rarely, if ever, put on public display - the exhibition sets out to make clear that these pictures are about far more than mere physical description. They are a series of subjective images, each shaped by the beliefs and desires, the ambitions and prejudices, the passions and anxieties of its period.
