Why do American history books all seem to end at 1950?

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The ones at my high school did anyway. It was 2009-2010 that I remember really studying such textbooks. Hasn't enough changed in the past 60 or so years? After all, pretty much all decades starting with the 1950s had their own distinct culture. The 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, and 2000s were all unique.

It was the beginning of the decline.

We started losing wars.

Your school system is too cheap to buy new books, but not too cheap to fund its bloated administrative bureaucracy.

This seems plausible.

Anyway, It drives me a little crazy too. I'm currently taking a class in university called the twentieth century world. As far as I can see, It focuses on the first half of the twentieth century in Europe and the United States. It's a shame because I find the second half equally interesting and relevant.

This is true for my school. We're using 30+ year old textbooks.

This makes me quite sad to hear, but my guess would be the sixties are still too "hot" to handle. Too many things happened that can be viewed this way and that.
I sincerely hope it's not due to schools not spending money.

I can't remember if it was here but I once remember reading a post somewhere complaining about the oldness of the textbooks where they went to school and their textbooks said "someday man will walk on the moon."

Are schools in the USA really that decrepit ??

Part of it is having no money, part of it is being cheap with money, and another part of it is irresponsible spending on the school district's part.

To answer the question; pretty much. I'm used to it, though.

It's not that they're not spending any money, they just have none at all to use. We had to cut five teachers at my school just to have enough money for a proper school year. I see the school closing in the next 5-6 years.

When I took american history part two in highschool the year was 1972.

The two teachers who taught the course (which was supposed to start with the end of the civil war) didnt actually even start the material until the year 1929 (the beginning of the Great Depression). We studied the depression and the labor movement, the war and the start of the cold war and the beginnings of the civil rights movement in the fifties, and ended with the Kennedy years (bay of pigs, cuban missle crises). So history ended only a decade before what was then the present.

So Im shocked if what youre saying is true-that public school history studies have receded rather than moved forward in time-WITH time.

Dont know why that would be.

The sixties were the start of the still raging culture wars in the usa, but I cant believe that that alone is the reason.

Ofcourse Ive read that in the Austrian public school system "history ends at 1938" because they dont like to talk about the Anchluss ( Austrian unification with Nazi Germany) and afterward.

I don't see why not. Countries do bad things sometimes, and I'd like to learn what happened so that something like slavery or mass genocide of innocent people won't happen again in the same country.

Point is: We all do things we're not proud of. No one is immune to it.

Ill keep It simple Its easier to control Ignorant people!

My textbooks were relatively new, but the school building was very decrepit. I grew up in a poor school district where gangs ruled the halls of the high school.