Japanese scholars criticize U.S. history textbook

A group of 19 Japanese historians and scholars plan to file a protest with U.S. publisher McGraw-Hill, claiming a history textbook it published in 2011 contains a number of “factual errors” on the “comfort women” issue.

Comfort women is a euphemism used in Japan to refer to women and girls who were forced to work at wartime Japanese military brothels during the 1930s and 1940s.

The group, represented by historian Ikuhiko Hata, said the number of women cited in the book — 200,000 — is too large.