Aesthetic Monk
Explorer
Starman said:
If you're interested in history of education itself, then there are probably too many good books for me to recommend.
The Rury book I mentioned is good because it's short, it covers a lot of ground, and it gives ideas for other topics that might be of interest. It's also bad for pretty much the first two reasons--that it's (too) short and covers (arguably) too much ground.Carl Kaestle's "Pillars of the Republic" is a wonderful book on early American/U.S. education. Still in print; should be cheap and easy to find. It's the book that is most responsible for me being interested in history of education, for better or worse.
Pretty much anything by David Tyack is worth a read. "The One Best System" is excellent, if a bit older now.
Somewhat dated now, Lawrence Cremin's "Transformation of the School" is a classic in the field. People still argue more or less for or against its interpretation of the Progressive Era education (including Ravitch, below, and Herbert Kliebard in "Struggle for the American Curriculum," which I reviewed here. ).
Though I find much to challenge in her work, Diane Ravitch writes some well-written if a bit one-dimensional education histories. "Left Back" is a good overview of 20th-century education, though it's pretty decidedly one-sided. Joel Spring writes educational histories that go just about as far in the other direction and serve as a decent pairing. (He and Ravitch are old antagonists.)
There are lots of recent histories of minority and ethnic education as well--too many to list easily here. "The Education of Blacks in the South" by James Anderson is essential. Ronald Takaki's "A Different Mirror," though not strictly an education history, is very well done and has a lot of educational implications.
