As a child in 1930s Germany, Wolf Dettbarn was playful and curious, plopping old ladies hats into a bathtub to see if they would float and watching tadpoles hatch on the banks of the Werra River. At odds with his military family, Wolf dreamed of becoming a doctor, but the rising power of the Nazi Party changed the course of his adolescent life. At thirteen he was sent to the Adolf Hitler Schule in Bavaria and at seventeen he was conscripted into active duty, and all the while he struggled to hide his dislike for the school and the military, and his growing disillusion with the Nazi regime. When the war finally ended, Wolf set aside his military past and worked to rebuild his life and realize his childhood dreams. Wolf, a natural storyteller, describes his transition from schoolboy to soldier to doctor with unaffected candor and insight, painting a picture of the fear, propaganda, and silence that surrounded him as Germany fell to pieces. Wolfs reflection on his young adulthood is a story of devastation and resilience, proof that humanity can grow in the worst of conditions.

In an era defined by political polarization, both major U.S. parties have come to share a remarkably similar understanding of the education system as well as a set of punitive strategies for fixing it. Combining an intellectual history of social policy with a sweeping history of the educational system, Daniel S. Moak looks beyond the rise of neoliberalism to find the origin of today's education woes in Great Society reforms. In the wake of World War II, a coalition of thinkers gained dominance in U.S. policymaking. They identified educational opportunity as the ideal means of addressing racial and economic inequality by incorporating individuals into a free market economy. The passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965 secured an expansive federal commitment to this goal. However, when social problems failed to improve, the underlying logic led policymakers to hold schools responsible. Moak documents how a vision of education as a panacea for society's flaws led us to turn away from redistributive economic policies and down the path to market-based reforms, No Child Left Behind, mass school closures, teacher layoffs, and other policies that plague the public education system to this day.

Alexandre Najjar was eight when Lebanon erupted into a bloody and brutal conflict; he was twenty-three when the guns at last fell silent. After seven years of voluntary exile spent trying to escape the nightmare of civil war, he is now back amongst his family and friends, and the past is quickly catching up with him. As he reacquaints himself with his bullet-riddled city, Alexandre is haunted by vivid memories which he sets down with extraordinary candour and good humour. Sometimes nostalgic, often brutal and shocking, The School of War offers unforgettable insight into a child's experiences during times of conflict. 'A marvellously affecting memoir of the war in Lebanon: perfectly pitched and intensely evocative, and all the more powerful from being seen through the eyes of a child.' William Boyd Delicate and unforgettable' Elle Magazine One of the most talented writers of his generation' Le Monde

Shortly after the Russians launched Sputnik in 1957, Hannah Arendt quipped that "only in America could a crisis in education actually become a factor in politics." The Cold War battle for the American school - dramatized but not initiated by Sputnik - proved Arendt correct. The schools served as a battleground in the ideological conflicts of the 1950s. Beginning with the genealogy of progressive education, and ending with the formation of New Left and New Right thought, Education and the Cold War offers a fresh perspective on the postwar transformation in U.S. political culture by way of an examination of the educational history of that era.

"Teaching About the Wars breaks the curricular silence on the U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Even though the United States has been at war continuously since just after 9/11, sometimes it seems that our schools have forgotten. This collection of insightful articles and hands-on lessons shows that teachers have found ways to prompt their students to think critically about big issues. Here is the best writing from Rethinking Schools magazine on war and peace in the 21st century."--Publisher's website.

This was the first book which globally surveyed the impact of the Second World War on schooling. It offers fascinating comparisons of the impact of total war, both in terms of physical disruption and its effects on the ideology of schooling. By analysing the effects on the education systems of each of the participant nations the contributors throw new light on the responses made in different parts of the globe to the challenge of world-wide conflict.

An ambitious and timely look at the role of religion in New York State's early public schools.