Estado, editoras e ensino: o papel da política na produção, avaliação e distribuição dos livros didáticos de História no Brasil (1938-2012)

If we take a look to the history of the textbook in Brazil, we’ll see that their distribution to Elementary and High Schools is guaranteed by a governmental national educational policy put to effect in Brazil through the Programa Nacional do Livro Didatico. However, the trajectories of evaluation, regulation and distributional policies of textbooks in Brazil have been marked by three specific moments in national history: the first one, still in the 19th century, with the creation of the Comissao de Instrucao Publica; the second one with the Comissao Nacional do Livro Infantil (1936), the Comissao Nacional do Ensino Primario (1938) and the Comissao Nacional do Livro Didatico (1938) and the third one with the creation, in 1985, at the end of the military regime, of the Programa Nacional do Livro Didatico, shortened to PNLD. Thus, in the present paper we analyze the historical role of both of these organs in the process of selection and distribution of the textbooks to Brazilian public schools.