In this study, international recommendations for history education issued by UNESCO and the Council of Europe are compared with the construing of history in national guidelines, teachers' perceptions and the results of students' work in history in Sweden. The study shows how history education from the 1960s onwards could be critical and oriented towards minorities in a global world, clearly in line with the recommendations of UNESCO. International understanding, unity in diversity and safeguarding the local heritage in many ways became part of students' historical consciousness.