Yes, and no.

My expertise on history textbook (narratives) is primarily limited to the Dutch case, but I might be able to answer your question to some extent.

In the Netherlands, the history curriculum is very general and the educational system very decentralized. The government only describes the curriculum in very broad terms, with enough room for the various religious or political groups to teach (Dutch) history in their own image. This dates back to the days of public and special (religious) education, and the pillarization of Dutch society. Basically, it left space for the Catholics to teach a Catholic history of the Netherlands, for the Protestants to write a protestant history and for the socialists to teach more social-democratic history. Nowadays, the history textbook market is dominated by two or three publishing houses and it's a non-issue now. Still, "the state" does not manipulate history.

In the US, the various State Boards of Education (especially the Texas one, since it represents one of the larger markets for textbooks) have to approve history textbooks. In recent years, the TSBE has been very "politicized", resulting in what some would call "Republican history".

However, one should look beyond simply the governmental level. History textbooks know many authors and audiences, and they serve a multiplicity of goals. The publishers want to make money, the schools want "quality" material (which, in the case of history textbooks, rarely means "historical accuracy"), parents generally want their children to have an education that meets their own worldview and the state often considers history the mode for teaching civics.

Add to this the issue of "manipulation", or rather... The question of who "owns" public history. To take the Texas State Board of Education as an example... There is no doubt that there is (some) bias in the recommendations they propose, but the members have been democratically elected. One could argue that their are not manipulating the past, but legitimately acknowledging one particular interpretation of it.

Strictly speaking, such an approach to the past would constitute what the Belgian historian Antoon de Baets has called the 'abuse of history'; willfully manipulating the past in order to achieve ulterior goals. We associate this kind of behaviour with totalitarian regimes, but would you believe me if I'd say that UNESCO, in a more gentle fashion and for more noble aims, is doing the same?.

"Manipulation of the past" is a fickle thing, because we really know so little of it and even biased accounts can be historically true. The journalist Frances FitzGerald researched the changing narrative of American history textbooks in 1979 in her book America Revised. She concludes that the representation of the American past changes significantly between generations. Willfull manipulation, or the natural evolution of historical interpretation through the lense of contemporary issues?

The line is hard to draw.

Here in the US I'd say we suffer more from over-simplification than outright manipulation of narrative, and only really at the high school level. There are examples of manipulation of narrative. For instance, when we were studying the Ronald Reagan administration and the downfall of the USSR, it is presented in such a way that Ronald Reagan was a visionary who almost single-handedly brought down the Berlin Wall with his military spending strategies, ignoring almost all of the context of the strain Soviet expansionist policies had placed on their resources. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan wasn't even mentioned, as I recall.

However, more often than not the classes readily recognized and discussed mistakes America had made -- although they were little more than a paragraph or two on the subject. There is a myth that the World Wars are taught in America as, "Europe was messing about and then America came in and saved the day." This is not true in my experience. At least, not in schools. This mode of thinking is certainly perpetrated by popular media. It's rare for Western European forces to be much more than set pieces in film and television that regards the World Wars from an American perspective, and the Eastern front is lucky to be mentioned in passing. I will say, though, that non-US involvement in the Pacific theater is limited to brief mentions of the situations of Australia and China in school. It wasn't until much later that I learned the scale of non-US involvement in that theater. To be truthful, I wasn't aware that anyone else was really involved.

It's easy to paint that as manipulating the narrative, I think, but when you compare it to the history taught prior to American history, it's not very different. Key moments and figures are mentioned, dates memorized, peripheral details are glossed over. I think it's more a symptom of an education system largely disinterested in social studies than an example of historical revisionism.

Once you get into college-level classes, though, that changes. For the most part.

EDIT: I'd say, more than any national-pride sort of revisionism, the main problem is the way western culture throughout history is portrayed. China is touched on briefly, but for the most part Western culture is depicted as an enlightened (if somewhat ambitious) civilization in a world of barbarians bickering over unforgiving landscapes. For instance, there's a lot of stuff about colonialism, but almost nothing about the fallout it caused. There's certainly mention of the brutality of said colonialism, but nothing about the long-term effects it had on the regions beyond, "Well they speak Spanish and are Christian now!"

EDIT2: It's worth noting that I went to public school in a very rural, very conservative, very patriotic county in the Southeastern US -- a notoriously nationalistic part of the country. Now, it was Virginia, which is a bit less overtly... well... xenophobic as a state than, say, Texas, but in Virginia the curriculum was left largely for the local school authorities to decide (with the exception of national and state policies, but that was more a "at the bare minimum" sort of deal). My county was more South Carolina than Washington D.C. If that was my experience there, I don't imagine it gets much worse, as a general rule. There are certain states that have some decidedly backwards ideas regarding general curriculum (Texas and Kansas jump to mind) but that has more to do with religion and science than history.

I just point this out because I want to preclude any, "Well, you must have gone to private school in a liberal town," assumptions.

Hi, i have lived in both Pakistan and Canada, and have taken history courses in both, so I can provide insight in this regard.

Lets go with Pakistan first, since that's what the question proposes as a baseline example. In Pakistan, history classes focus on several matters; pre-british era dynasties (primarily the Mughals), Vasco da Gamma, and then later on the British East India Training company (ultimately leading to seperation). Certain texts lightly cover post independence (1947) years, covering primarily the death of the country's founder (M.A Jinnah) and subsequent army rulers.

From the above, we can see that yes, they really don;t touch international events such as World War 2, World War 1, American independence, European dyanties, etc etc.

Now lets go to Canada. History courses there embarrassingly biased. The classes focus primarily on Canada during its formation years (as a colony of the British and French), homesteading policies and how they had to rely on immigration in the early years. Ultimately, they reach world war 1, and finally World War 2. Depressingly, the cold war era is barely scratched up. Of course, there is the battle of Vimy Ridge that is also very prominent in canadian history books, as it is arguably the most symbolic battle fought by the Canadians.

So, comparing both countries, I would say yes, there is considerable "manipulation" that gives a national narrative in history classes taught at the school level. In both cases, one would have to take a personal interest to obtain the full picture of both the world wars, the cold war, and post ww2 modern history.

Trainee History Teacher in the UK and we very nearly had the worst curriculum last February. A chronological narrative of history taught to five to fourteen year olds. High school would be three years of History lessons covering 1750 onwards. We had a checklist of statutory content covering all year groups. Now, consider this - even high school history does not need to be taught by a specialist, and many schools lump history in with intergrated humanities. As far as manipulation was concerned there was little blatant manipulation but some dubious phrasing. It was rather jingoistic and pro-Empire. We were to teach up to and including the election of Margaret Thatcher - though no further, despite covering the 1980s and 1990s... The English Enlightenment including John Smith and no reference to the Enlightenment elsewhere. Time was taken up by Corn Laws, the 'Transport Revolution' and there were near token hints to history beyond Britain. It was all very 'what we dud when we got there, but not the bad bits'. Wolf in Canada and Clive of India were particular high points... I have one hour a week with Year 7, two a week with Year 8 and one a week with Year 9, after which students can drop history. The 'current'/old curriculum suffered and was cut short by most schools due to a lack of time, the new curriculum would be near impossible to teach in such limited time, other than literally checklisting through it.

Pupils under eleven had to cover history up to 1750, including the fall of the Roman Empire and the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy. They had five year olds covering Parliament despite the fact that the word parliament is classed as a piece of vocabulary for seven year olds... It was farcical. It was apparently written in conjunction with academic historians, but they all washed their hands of it on publication. What followed was a lengthy public debate over the curriculum, including the Historical Association getting very het up about everything, until Michael Gove backed down and created a new new curriculum (which was effectively 2008's curriculum with new side headings).

rant over