"This fascinating and forensic analysis shows how the British liberal-Left gave up on aspirations for working class access to liberal, universal notions of knowledge as a means of emancipation. In Paterson's sobering testament to the pressing need for historical memory, advocates of 'progressive' or 'radical' education came to replace class history with case history, and to present individual self-hood in the name of class-consciousness and cultural recognition in the name of social justice. The book illuminates all too well that, outside a dwindling social elite, education at all levels now offers an increasingly instrumental vocational curriculum that eulogises 'skills' in employability, learning to learn and personal development.".