Ethnocentric views and nationalist biases in textbooks are usually associated with the first half of the twentieth century when national rivalries dominated international affairs and fascist and authoritarian regimes controlled much of the European continent. Marsden, for example, notes that the glorification of war and the vilification of neighbouring states permeated the history and geography textbooks of Great Britain, France, the United States and Germany from the 1880s until the 1940s, despite efforts by the League of Nations to curb rampant chauvinism in textbooks in the interwar period.

After the Second World War politicians and educators concluded that jingoism in textbooks must have contributed to the atrocities committed in the war. Consequently, supported by UNESCO and the Council of Europe, many countries began removing nationalist leanings from their curricula and textbooks. Bilateral agreements were concluded and special commissions set up to identify and eliminate prejudice and stereotypes. Thematically, the emphasis shifted from national to international history and from political and military history, with its tendency to praise national achievements and national heroes, to socio-economic and cultural issues and the daily life of the common person.