A. S. Neill was arguably the most famous child educator of the twentieth century. He was certainly the most controversial. All over the world, countless parents and teachers have been shocked, delighted or inspired by his subversive ideas about education, or by a visit to ‘that dreadful school’ which continues to this day – Summerhill. First published in 1983, this sympathetic but critical exploration of his iconoclastic ideas and personality is the result of interviews with two hundred ex-pupils, parents and teachers about life at Summerhill, and of the practicality of Neill’s philosophy about child freedom. Jonathan Croall has also drawn on many unpublished letters and documents, which help to illuminate Neill’s personal struggles, and his analysis and friendship with Homer Lane, Wilhelm Stekel and Wilhelm Reich. The result is a fascinating and revealing portrait of a remarkable man who, in his absolute determination to be ‘on the side of the child’, remained in permanent opposition to the adult world.

A. S. Neill, founder of Summerhill, the most admired and most feared of all progressive schools, was famous as a schoolteacher, educational reformer, and author of illuminating and stylish books about education and the mind of the child. But few people know he was also a dedicated, prolific, uninhibited, witty and often mischievous letter writer. This selection of gems, first published in 1983, has been chosen from hundreds of his letters by his biographer. It includes letters about education, children, politics, writing, fatherhood, the Bomb, old age and death. ‘All the best, Neill’ was the familiar ending of his letters to the famous – H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, Henry Miller, Paul Goodman, Wilhelm Reich, Homer Lane; to important educators – W. B. Curry of Dartington, John Aitkenhead of Kilquhanity, Bob Mackenzie of Braehead, Dora Russell of Beacon Hill; to unknown friends, parents, and even casual correspondents. To read these letters is to share the company of a great and always delightful man, who wrote each one with the same commitment and gaiety.

From William Morris to Oscar Wilde to George Orwell left-libertarian thought has long been an important but neglected part of British cultural and political history. This work seeks to recover that indigenous anarchist tradition. It argues that a recovered anarchist tradition could be a touchstone for contemporary political radicals.

Aristotle offers a conception of the private and its relationship to the public that suggests a remedy to the limitations of liberalism today, according to Judith A. Swanson. In this fresh and lucid interpretation of Aristotle's political philosophy, Swanson challenges the dominant view that he regards the private as a mere precondition to the public. She argues, rather, that for Aristotle private activity develops virtue and is thus essential both to individual freedom and happiness and to the well-being of the political order. Swanson presents an innovative reading of The Politics which revises our understanding of Aristotle's political economy and his views on women and the family, slavery, and the relation between friendship and civic solidarity. She examines the private activities Aristotle considers necessary to a complete human life—maintaining a household, transacting business, sustaining friendships, and philosophizing. Focusing on ways Aristotle's public invests in the private through law, rule, and education, she shows how the public can foster a morally and intellectually virtuous citizenry. In contrast to classical liberal theory, which presents privacy as a shield of rights protecting individuals from one another and from the state, for Aristotle a regime can attain self-sufficiency only by bringing about a dynamic equilibrium between the public and the private. The Public and the Private in Aristotle's Political Philosophy will be essential reading for scholars and students of political philosophy, political theory, classics, intellectual history, and the history of women.

A guide to experimental education, originally published in 1960 and expanded for the 1990s, features a discussion of how American education lags behind the rest of the world and what people can do to change that.