This feels like a rare find.
4 stars
Finding books about the history of schooling is difficult, especially because many of them seem to take the position of the school as an inherent good that is necessary for society to continue. It is because this book challenges that idea that I find it so intriguing, especially as it has provided me with a range of directions to explore (both in terms of things I already knew and things I hadn't really thought about).
It is definitely something that I'd recommend people genuinely engage with, especially if the readers are willing to question beliefs (their own or society's) about the necessity of schooling, the conflation between schooling and education, the importance of literacy (and the moralising society has around illiteracy), and how the more radical elements of the left essentially dropped schooling and ignored its importance in favour of "acquiring the state."