Trousson, Raymond / Vercruysse, Jeroom (dir.), Dictionnaire general de Voltaire. (Champion classiques, references et dictionnaires 18) 1272 p. 2020:10 (Champion, FR) <670-9>
ISBN 978-2-38096-016-7 paper ¥7,064.- (税込) EUR 38.00

Xing, Longfei, Crossing the Iron Curtain: Western Students in Mao's China (1949-1976). (Rethinking the Cold War 15) 280 pp. 2025:12 (de Gruyter Oldenbourg, GW) <758-684>
ISBN 978-3-11-914744-6 hard ¥25,396.- (税込) EUR 99.95

During the Cold War, an invisible "iron curtain" divided the Western world from Maoist China. What motives lay behind the facade of educational exchange? This book explores the experiences of Western students in China from 1949 to 1976, revealing how education became a strategic tool of people’s diplomacy. Through an analysis of the PRC’s educational policies, tailored curricula, and student memoirs, it reconstructs the landscape of studying in Maoist China. It reveals how China attempted to shape Western students' understanding of and attitudes toward China through an education that served proletarian politics, blended social practices with productive labor, and a management that differentiated between insiders and outsiders. It also investigates how these strategies shaped Western students' perceptions and influenced their reflections on their experiences. This study provides a fresh perspective on Sino-Western exchanges, showing how state-driven diplomacy intertwined with personal, unofficial interactions through education. These connections enriched the state-centric narrative of Cold War diplomacy, serving as reference for scholars of public diplomacy, international relations, and intercultural exchange.

Coello, Gioconda, Education, Good Living, and Storytelling in Rural Ecuador: Ancestral Pueblos' Practices against the Grain, 1960s-1970s. (Education in Latin America and the Caribbean) 215 pp. 2025:12 (Palgrave Macmillan, UK) <758-1063>
ISBN 978-3-032-06255-0 hard ¥38,111.- (税込) EUR 149.99

This book centers on the stories and histories of buen vivir ("good living") in education in Ecuador, focusing on how Indigenous and Afrodiasporic Peoples have strategically engaged with state educational initiatives to advance their own epistemic and political projects. It examines the ideas of buen vivir in Fundamental Education programs destined to "better the lives" of the rural population in Ecuador in the 1960s and 1970s. After the bureaucratization of buen vivir in Ecuador and Bolivia, a regional wave of critique problematized the idea, yet the historical resonances of governmental uses of buen vivir with previous modernization projects have been understudied. Moving beyond a national framework, it offers a comparative and transnational perspective on how the notion of rural has been constructed through modernizing reason. The education experiences explored here are memory on strategies of resistance against dispossession and racism, as well as spaces of organization and affirmation of knowledge.

Egger, Michael, Vormoderne Alphabetisierung: Volksbildung im Spiegel der Zuercher "Seelenbeschreibungen". (Konfession und Literalitaet in der Vormoderne / Confession and Literacy in the Pre-Modern Era 2) 620 S. 2025:12 (de Gruyter, GW) <758-1064>
ISBN 978-3-11-163667-2 hard ¥22,855.- (税込) EUR 89.95

Research on literacy highlights one of the fundamental issues facing societies, as only those who can read printed texts can participate in the written discourses of their time. Using the Descriptions of Souls, around 70,000 data sets on Zurich’s rural and urban populations between 1630 and 1770, this study disproves the paradigm of an illiterate Europe pre-1800. Literacy began before the Enlightenment within the scope of confessionalization.

Hemetsberger, Bernhard / Oberdorf, Andreas (eds.), Go West!: Conceptual Explorations of "the West" in the History of Education. 220 S. 2025:6 (de Gruyter Oldenbourg, GW) <758-1065>
ISBN 978-3-11-140813-2 hard ¥19,044.- (税込) EUR 74.95

The “West” is a central concept in public discourse, but its meaning is often unclear and open to manifold interpretations and ascriptions of belonging and exclusion: Who is part of the “West”? When and where is it located? How did its meaning change over space and time? Who are the mediators of the “West” and what is their interest in terms of culture and education? The “West” is often used without any critical questioning, though. This is also reflected in history of education research, especially with focus on transnational or transatlantic issues. Here, the “West” is a sort of “container” term or “fuzzy” concept that can refer to a variety of historical entanglements and cultural transfers in school systems and education, but also to conflicts and crises, accordingly. This book aims to stimulate a critical reflection and debate on ideas of the “West” in the history of education by gathering scholars from various fields of historical research. With a reflexive historical distance to current political incidents, in which ideas of the “West” are revived, the contributions in this book are intended to enable readers to evaluate representations of the “West” in current academic or public discourses and debates alike.