Untransferability of books between countries and cultures

In the past, many textbooks designed for use in one country have been introduced wholesale into another without reference to differences such as linguistic, social, and cultural. The books so introduced are often misleading, irrelevant or even offensive in the new context.

The problem is especially evident in the transfer of books from Western to non-Western cultures and between non-Western cultures. It occurs both with scientific textbooks, which may make allusions to phenomena outside the general knowledge of the reader in the receiving culture, and with literature such as folk tales.

A British poster picturing a "pregnant" man and encouraging the use of contraception by men was beyond the imagination of the people in Bangladesh: they assumed the man in the picture had worms.