Specially commissioned to mark the 40th Anniversary of History of Education, and containing articles from leading international scholars, this is a unique and important volume. Over the past forty years, scholars working in the history of education have engaged with histories of religion, gender, science and culture, and have developed comparative research on areas such as education, race and class. This volume demonstrates the richness of such work, bringing together some of the leading international scholars writing in the field of history of education today, and providing readers with original and theoretically informed research. Each author draws on the wealth of material that has appeared in the leading SSCI-indexed journal History of Education, over the past forty years, providing readers with not only incisive studies of major themes, but delivering invaluable research bibliographies. A 'must have' for university libraries and a 'must own' for historians.

This book was originally published as a special issue of History of Education.

Deirdre Raftery is a historian of education at University College Dublin, Ireland. A recent Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, UK, and a Life Member of the University of Cambridge, UK, she has written many books including Women and Learning in English Writing, 1600-1900 (1997), and (jointly) Emily Davies, Selected Letters (2002), and Female Education in Ireland, 1700-1900: Minerva or Madonna? (2005). She has also contributed chapters to Routledge books including The Routledge Companion to Education, and Routledge's new Introduction to the Study of Education (Routledge, forthcoming). She is joint editor of History of Education, and a member of the Executive Committee of the History of Education Society (UK).

David Crook joined Brunel University in 2011. Formerly a comprehensive secondary school teacher, he worked at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK, between 1994 and 2010, including periods as Course Leader for the MA in History of Education, Assistant Dean of Research and Consultancy and Head of the Educational Foundations and Policy Studies Department. He remains a Visiting Fellow of the Institute. His many publications include McCulloch, G. & Crook, D., The Routledge international encyclopedia of education (2008) and Crook, D.& McCulloch, G., History, politics and policy-making in education (Routledge 2007). He is joint editor of History of Education, and a member of the Executive Committee of the History of Education Society (UK).