The first history textbooks which mention the Clinton era are out, and while they mention the impeachment, few of them go into much detail, and none at all mention Monica Lewinsky’s name or any of the sordid details.

The Clinton era is in a “gray area” — too old to be considered current events, and too new to be considered historical. So history textbooks offer little on his presidency, and only the briefest mentions of the sex scandal.

“[The Clinton impeachment] should not be in the book for titillating purposes or settling scores,” said Alan Brinkley, the Columbia University provost who has written or contributed to several history text books. “It should be in the book because of its significance to our recent history.”

The treatment in The American Journey from McGraw-Hill seems to be representative. “Although there was general agreement that the president had lied, Congress was divided over whether his actions justified impeachment,” it said.

“I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” Clinton had said, in what has become his most famous quotation — at least for a while.

In McDougal Littell’s “The Americans,” a high school text, the topic merits two paragraphs. The same book gave more space to the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868.

The American Vision, a McGraw Hill high school book written by Brinkley and others, spends five paragraphs on Clinton’s impeachment and one more on his uncertain legacy. . . .

“A History of the United States,” a Pearson Prentice Hall high school text, refers to the impeachment scandal as “a sorry mess” that diminished Clinton and his rivals.

Polls showed most Americans did not believe Clinton’s “tortured explanations of his behavior,” the book says, but also did not think his offenses warranted his removal.

By the time students get to college, the textbooks, as expected, offer more sophisticated detail of the impeachment and the way it all changed American public life.

Yet at all levels, the salacious details of the Lewinsky affair are nowhere to be found.

Middle school texts describe it as “a personal relationship between the president and a White House intern.” In high school books, it is Clinton’s “improper relationship with a young White House intern,” or Clinton “denied having sexual relations” with an intern. — Associated Press

The American Textbook Council reviews history and social studies textbooks, helping overworked school system administrators make choices as to what textbooks they should buy.