The altering of the presentation of Japan's imperialist adventures in Japanese high school history textbooks reflects a continuing dispute between Japan and her Asian neighbors, as well as between a politically conservative bureaucracy in the Ministry of Education and a historical profession heavily influenced by "progressives" who write from a leftist perspective. While the Ministry claims it is attempting to redress a Marxist bias in the presentation of history, it has been criticized for seeking to gloss over, if not actually justify, historical Japanese imperialism. Japanese texts do contain a leftist slant, are remarkably lacking in patriotic fervor or nationalist pride, and tend to be poorly designed and physically unattractive as compared to U.S. texts. The Japanese Ministry's efforts to engender patriotism seems to have led to a Korean decision to respond in a like manner to Korean-Japanese issues with a strong wave of anti-Japanese sentiment, and to further bolster nationalism through other biased revisions, especially in regard to ancient Korean history. (PPB)