Prominent American historians have banded together to protest efforts by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to revise American history textbooks.

On Feb. 5, 19 American historians - including Patrick Manning from the University of Pittsburgh and Alexis Dudden from the University of Connecticut - issued a statement titled, “Standing with Historians of Japan.”

“As historians, we express our dismay at recent attempts by the Japanese government to suppress statements in history textbooks both in Japan and elsewhere about the euphemistically named ‘comfort women,’ who suffered under a brutal system of sexual exploitation in the service of the Japanese imperial army during World War II,”

“We therefore oppose the efforts of states or special interests to pressure publishers or historians to alter the results of their research for political purposes.”

The statement came in response to a request made by the Japanese government at the end of last year for the author of “Traditions and Encounters,” an American history textbook, and McGraw-Hill, the book’s publisher, to remove some passages concerning the comfort women....