What do you say to pupils in the aftermath of the events of September 11 and the follow-up attack on Afghanistan? There are always big news stories that demand classroom time to reflect on what they mean and why they happened.

Few schools in the United Kingdom are without a Muslim presence, and a war such as the one we have ended up in demands careful and well-informed reflection and debate. The trouble is, well-informed is what it’s unlikely to be, given former education secretary Kenneth Clarke’s decade-old ban on teaching current affairs in GCSE history, and its obsession with Hitler.

Until citizenship arrives, current events are likely to feature in hurriedly composed assemblies or discussions of their ethics, or their TV presentation in religious or media studies, rather than as a properly resourced and taught part of the curriculum. This is why school libraries must have concise and authoritative material to explain the long-term background and the crucial, short-term context to modern conflicts.

These books try to provide that, tracing the history and turning points behind complex and confusing conflicts. They are up to date and each includes a section on the role of the media in manipulating events. While the books are good for AAS-level or strong GCSE candidates, the detail and writing style will make them difficult for the age range (13 plus) at which they are aimed.

It is not easy to simplify such issues accurately for a young audience: should you include all the political and paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland? Or the Serbs, Bosnian Serbs and Kosovan Serbs in Yugoslavia? These do, but it does not make easy reading.

There’s too little visual presentation and too much historical background. The Battle of Kosovo (1389) and the Battle of the Boyne (1690) had important ramifications in the 20th-century; but The Troubles in Northern Ireland gives us Cromwell and the Penal Laws and Wolfe Tone and Home Rule and the Easter Rising. There’s too much.

For older readers these books offer good, thought-provoking coverage. The Wars of Former Yugoslavia is thorough and balanced; the Arab-Israeli and Northern Ireland volumes carry good detail for coursework assignments, and Apartheid in South Africa is strong on the role and significance of Nelson Mandela, though at the expense of the guerrilla war of the 1970s and 1980s and the role of other nationalist leaders.

United Nations is a bit too ambitious, covering the role of UN peacekeeping forces from Korea to Somalia and Sierra Leone. But it raises many unanswered questions: why do countries contribute to UN peacekeeping forces? What are the soldiers meant to do?

But all eyes will fix on the Arab-Israeli volume. It takes the story up to 2000 and ends with a frank summary of unresolved issues: Palestine, the Israeli settlements, Jerusalem and who controls the region’s water supplies. Nevertheless, the final note is optimistic: “two peoples, who at one stage swore to wipe each other from the face of the Earth, have engaged in negotiations”. But that was when you needed Ben-Gurion in your index, not Bin Laden.

Sean Lang teaches history at Hills Road sixth form college, Cambridge