Someone once asked me if an old history book was outdated. In other words, shouldn't I get a newer history book? My answer was no--but it's not as obvious as I hoped it might be. Any book or document ( paper of any kind) "becomes" history if it gets old enough, of course. A very old diary, newspaper, bill of sale, letter, advertisement---they are all "history". So an old history book "becomes" history in the same way. If it contains data like population statistics they will be outdated as current information--but they are still history. History doesn't change much, anyway, even though it is often re-written for style and content. I think the history books we used when I was in school forty years ago did a better job including blacks and women than some of the newer books do. So in the case of using the book in a classroom, and not just for adult scholars, there is no substitute for reading the book with the ideas in mind you hope to see expressed in it. Up to the minute statistics are readily available on the internet. We no longer need the books to be as "current" as we once did for the purpose of statistics on population or economics, for instance.
Suggestion--If the students' books seem out of date to them, an interesting assignment might be to have students update some of the material, using the internet and library.
Suggestion--
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