Originally published in 1986. This book's focus is on English secondary schooling in the late 19th and 20th Centuries, during which the definition of a general ‘secondary’ education was itself negotiated and consolidated before the development of secondary modern and then comprehensive schools. In each chapter, a specialist contributor considers the changing ideology, shape and status of one of the seven traditional academic subjects, namely Classics, Modern Languages, English, History, Geography, Mathematics and Science. These seven school subjects have dominated the academic school curriculum since the nineteenth century and continue to exert a powerful influence upon the contemporary school curriculum today despite the emergence of various rivals and the growing status of ‘practical' subjects.

Geography as an academic discipline dates back to the last few decades of the nineteenth century. However, during the preceding centuries a large body of English-language literature relevant to the field of special geography was published. Four Centuries of Special Geography lists all the works published before 1888 and includes descriptions of each entry and notes on later editions.