The Disappearing Continent: A Critique of the Revised AP European History Examination by David Randall

Posted By on June 15th, 2016

https://www.nas.org/

https://www.nas.org/articles/the_disappearing_continent

Editor’s Note: What follows is the digital publication of an important new NAS study: a critique of the College Board’s new Advanced Placement European history standards. Two years ago NAS’s critique of the College Board’s dramatically revised U.S. History Standards touched off a national debate. That debate led the College Board in 2015 to revise those standards again. NAS’s critique also prompted a movement to develop a competing set of standards and tests to provide American schools an alternative to the College Board’s monopoly.

What the College Board did to American history it has now done to European history: erase and contort. Much of the European past goes missing in the new AP European History Course and Exam Description, as it is officially called.  Columbus is absent, and Churchill is reduced to a single prompt. The College Board tells the story of European history as the triumph of secular progressivism, and shunts to the margins the continent’s centuries-long rise to political freedom and prosperity.

In his 12,200-word essay, The Disappearing Continent, NAS Director of Communications David Randall (Ph.D., History, Rutgers University, 2005; specializing in early modern European history) traces the pattern of exclusions and inclusions in these standards, which are already shaping high school curricula across the country. The Disappearing Continent is the first extended examination of the College Board’s European history initiative. We hope to inspire others to join us in the effort to challenge the new standards—to improve them if possible and to replace them if necessary.

New York, NY (June 14, 2016) — The College Board’s new 2015 AP European History examination (APEH) warps and guts the history of Europe to make it serve today’s progressive agenda, concludes a new report by the National Association of Scholars.

NAS’s comprehensive study, The Disappearing Continent:  A Critique of the Revised Advanced Placement European History Examination, documents how APEH treats Europe’s history as a neo-Marxist, generic narrative powered by abstract social and economic forces. It mentions neither Christopher Columbus nor Winston Churchill.

The Disappearing Continent revealed details including:

  1. APEH presents the history of government rather than of liberty.
  2. APEH presents religion throughout as an instrument of power rather than as an autonomous sphere of European history.
  3. APEH treats the movement to abolish slavery without mentioning how it was inspired by religious faith.
  4. APEH underplays British history throughout, thus minimizing the importance of Britain’s distinctive history in the European tradition as the champion of liberty.
  5. APEH minimizes and extenuates the evils of Communism, the brutal destructiveness of Soviet rule, and the aggressiveness of Soviet foreign policy.
  6. APEH virtually ignores Europe’s unique development of the architecture of modern knowledge, which made possible almost every modern form of intellectual inquiry.

NAS director of communications David Randall, the author of the report, said, “The College Board’s progressive distortion of European history powerfully resembles the bias in its 2014 Advanced Placement United States History examination (APUSH). The College Board’s persistent progressive bias substantiates concerns that the 2015 APUSH revisions do not represent a genuine change of direction.”

The Disappearing Continent recommends that the College Board revise APEH to portray Europe’s exceptional history more accurately. Its recommendations include:

  1. The College Board should restore the importance of contingency, culture, politics, and historical individuals, and reduce the importance of inevitability, society, and economics.
  2. The College Board should place the history of religion (including histories of Orthodoxy, Islam, and Judaism), the history of liberty, and the history of Britain at the heart of APEH.
  3. The College Board should also place the emergence of the theory and practice of free-market economic liberty at the heart of APEH.
  4. The College Board should accompany changes to APEH with parallel changes in all APEH materials, including textbooks, instructional materials, and teacher training.

Since Americans should not rely on the College Board, or any one organization, to make these changes, NAS makes one final recommendation:

5)      Americans should restore choice and accountability to secondary education in America by developing competitive alternatives to the College Board’s AP testing program.

* * * *

About the National Association of Scholars: The National Association of Scholars works to foster intellectual freedom and to sustain the tradition of reasoned scholarship and civil debate in America’s colleges and universities. To learn more about NAS, visit www.nas.org.

Download the PDF: www.nas.org/apeh

Contact: David Randall / Director of Communications / randall@nas.org / (917) 551-6770

David Randall is director of communications at the National Association of Scholars. He writes on early modern European history and has taught European history survey courses.

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