"History teaching: 'A total disgrace'," BBC Today, 28 December, finds Niall Ferguson and Tariq Ali in agreement. Hat tip.

Michael Dirda reviews Robert Morrison's The English Opium-Eater: A Biography of Thomas De Quincey for the Washington Post, 29 December.

Kevin Sieff,"Some Va. history texts filled with errors, review finds," Washington Post, 29 December, reports disturbing findings about K-12 texts in Virginia history.

Ellen Handler Spitz,"Life Lessons," The Book, 29 December, reviews two children's biographies of important American modernists, Charles Ives and Gertrude Stein.

Finally, farewell to David F. Noble, a controversial historian of education, science and technology.