Now Ms. Park, who stated during a 1989 television interview that her father’s military coup was “a revolution for the nation’s salvation,” is having her turn at correcting history. Most historians anticipate that the coming textbooks will overlook complex details of modern South Korean history: colonial-era elite collaboration with Japan, repression under dictatorships and the human costs of rapid economic development, to mention a few.

In an indication of the history textbooks’ future shape, the National Institute of Korean History supervising the overhaul has signaled that the names of authors will be kept secret until the project ends, limiting transparency. The defense minister has vowed to cooperate “so that our military can also participate in the writing of the textbooks” and undoubtedly bury references to its disgraceful actions in the past.

Ms. Park defends the unwritten books, saying that it is necessary to “inculcate the students with historical convictions and pride.” Yet that remark itself betrays an outdated view of history education as being solely in service of chauvinism, far removed from how more than 200 Korean studies professors around the world define it in a public call for South Korea to abort the new textbook plan.

In geopolitical terms, the Park administration is undermining efforts to confront Japan over its crimes in the wartime era, especially the issue of comfort women. If South Korea can promote its own incomplete history among children, why should Japan not be able to do the same and obscure its dark past?

Short of abandoning her scheme entirely, Ms. Park may be able to make a case for government-issued history textbooks by including on the panel of authors not only scholars from within her ideological camp but also an equal number of those her officials deem to be “leftists.”

According to the progressive daily Kyunghyang Shinmun, the administration understands the pitfalls of issuing its own textbooks: The prime minister’s office reportedly wrote in an internal report that only “underdeveloped nations such as North Korea, Sri Lanka, Mongolia and Vietnam” utilize government-issued textbooks. In short, only governments that suffer from a tenuous hold on legitimacy overtly rely on education to manipulate the masses.

And that is precisely what more and more South Koreans see the plan as: A Gallup Korea poll published on Nov. 6 showed that 53 percent opposed the change, an increase of 11 percent from a month ago. It is as good a sign as any that Ms. Park, or any leader of a democratic nation, can try to rewrite history but only at the risk of being judged by the nation — and history itself.