The Liberating Power of Education
A powerful and historically informative essay on how our views of education and its worth have come to be – and why education is central to the idea of freedom.
Part of the Academy of Ideas’ Letters on Liberty series of pamphlets, which explore what freedom means to us today.
“A masterful historical understanding of why liberal education is the way out of so many problems… people are always saying maybe we can add something to the curriculum, use education as a vehicle for propagandising this, that or the other… and Harley stands firm on the importance of education in its own right.”
Claire Fox, Director, Academy of Ideas
Published December 2021. 16 pages.
£2+p&p. Order now from the Academy of Ideas.
New Studies in the History of Education
I contributed to this Routledge book on the history of education, which was curated with Education Studies undergraduates in mind but is also suitable for the interested lay reader. My chapters on liberal education and mass education explore the development of education in England from its intellectual roots in Ancient Greece to the beginnings of the state system in 1870 and expand upon the ideas and events discussed in The Liberating Power of Education. You can find out more and read an excerpt here.
Published September 2023 by Routledge.
Available in an affordable paperback edition from Amazon or direct from Routledge.