While I may agree as to the demise of true conservatism I find your lack of faith in higher education rather disappointing. I am presently attending one of the most conservative campuses in the U.S. and, by and large, the professors here present a balanced and fair education. Writing off information because it comes from a text book written by someone who spent a great deal of time learning the subject is the height of willful arrogant ignorance and I hope you can shake yourself free from that. Does this mean that I think all professors are free of bias? Of course not. For the most part even they admit such and provide their students with opposing viewpoints for them to decide. But I will still take valid and in depth text book sources over Youtube videos like the one you provided, any day.
Be careful with textbooks. I agree with Chalenge a bit here. I have had textbooks issued to me and seen other textbooks issued to students that were chocked full of nonsense. My previous course, actually, I had to review four different books that were assigned. Two of them I hated and I deemed them very poor pieces of scholarship even though they advanced the field. These books,
Storm of Spears by Christopher Matthew being one of them, advanced the field because they add to the literature on the subject (in this case, specific fighting techniques of hoplites). However, his conclusions were all wrong (Ryan). The manner in which he arrived at most of his conclusions were baffling. He also completely ignored other options and methods, which translates to a poor methodological academic work. In my review, I slammed it for the most part, although it contributes to the field.
The problem that Chalenge is talking about has to do with ignorance. When history is taught with a bias and that bias is not relayed to the pupils, we get ignorance. Many textbooks that I grew up with championed Andrew Jackson. Whether he was good or bad, is hardly the issue and is certainly something that should not be outright stated in a textbook meant for young minds. Instead, the teacher and textbook should present the facts and allow the pupil to decide. Immanuel Kant comes to mind here. Young minds are easy to manipulate and bad textbooks and biased teachers help to skew perception. We must teach our young people to think for themselves rather than believe anything anyone tells them.
A big part of the problem is indeed the professor. It is up to the professor to choose the textbooks. Keep in mind, at the higher level of education, textbooks are no longer general histories like we have in high school. The professor will either choose a book with his/her bias, because literally everyone on the planet has bias, or specifically choose a book that is a concrete piece of scholarship in that field (i.e. Green, Yenne, Marshall, etc.). But, this discussion is about primary and secondary school textbooks. Most of these are as objective as it gets. They leave things out because of the breadth of the subject (US History, World History, Government, State History, etc.). As an example, 9th Grade World History students spend exactly zero minutes learning about Hannibal Barca. This is unfortunate because of the importance of Hannibal and Carthage to the Roman Republic's growth.
