The “Authors” » Who’s writing the secular textbooks?
So do you know who wrote the textbook you are using?
“Of course,” you say, “the author’s name is on the titlepage.”
Most people do not know that in modern textbook publishing, the name on the titlepage usually has nothing to do with who wrote the book.
But the books are still written by reputable authors, right?
Scary version?
Probably not.
In fact, in many cases, modern secular textbooks have no author at all.
Tamim Ansary, former editor for a leading publisher of elementary and high school textbooks, confesses his disillusionment with the whole process of creating textbooks. When he first began his career as an editor, his idealism about the creation of books was destroyed when he overheard his boss complaining, “The books are done and we still don’t have an author! I must sign someone today!”1 In other words, textbooks often are not written at all; they are compiled by teams of people with various purposes and goals.
Find out more about
How are secular textbooks compiled?
Why are the textbooks compiled this way?
What happens when a textbook has no author?
1 Tamim Ansary, “The Muddle Machine: Confessions of a Textbook Editor,” Edutopia (November 2004)