Who Really Writes the History Books?

A 2025 study of Irish textbooks found that 12 out of 14 commonly used geography and history books contained anti-Israel and arguably anti-Semitic material. This episode unravels the invisible machinery behind textbook creation: from ghostwritten content by uncredited freelancers to commercial incentives that reward ideological bias. We compare oversight models across Ireland, the US, France, Japan, and Finland, asking whether any system can produce neutral educational materials—or if every approach has its own failure mode.