Final answer:
Textbooks may shy away from the recent past due to the difficulty in establishing a consensus on recent events, the evolving nature of news and its impact on historical interpretation, and the complexity of textbook production which can't always keep pace with unfolding events.
Step-by-step explanation:
The recent past is often shied away from in textbooks for several reasons. One reason is that the in-depth coverage of the last ten years before a textbook's publication can be challenging due to ongoing debates and analyses, making it harder to establish a consensus on events. Subsequently, textbooks may favor generalities or case studies to address recent history. A surge in news media consumption has also shifted expectations, with students and the public seeking rich context and interpretations which may not be ready for textbook inclusion so soon after events occur. Meanwhile, the portrayal of events in textbooks can become a contentious issue because it can significantly impact socialization within education systems, sometimes leading to protests or criticisms over perceived biases or exclusions of certain historical facts, as seen in the controversy over Japanese textbooks' treatment of events from World War II. Consequently, there's a delicate balance in deciding how to include recent history in educational materials. Factors such as the ongoing nature of events, rapidly developing news cycles, and the demands of educational curricula all influence why recent history may be given less focus in textbooks, which may instead prioritize time-tested historical narratives. Lastly, textbooks production is complex and often cannot keep pace with the rapid unfolding of recent global events, resulting in the need to turn to other resources for the very latest historical accounts.