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This paper discusses the Japanese history textbook controversy over 'comfort women' to tease out insights that help globalize the existing theoretical discussion of politics of school knowledge. I begin by documenting how the domestic struggles over Japanese history textbooks are empowered and disempowered by the regional and international power relations. Using the Japanese case, I first problematize the use of hegemony in critical scholarship wherein struggles over school knowledge have been defined within the framework of a nation-state. Second, I call for situating the discussion of counter-hegemonic strategies in the increasingly internationalized politics of education witnessed around the world. In sum, this study calls for broadening the application of the notions of hegemony and counter-hegemony in critical education scholarship to take full account of the complex political dynamics of globalizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]