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Frank Furedi's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Frank Furedi recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Frank Furedi's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1

Between Past and Future

Arendt’s penetrating observations of the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, constitute a major contribution to political philosophy. In this book she describes the perplexing crises which modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory. Through a series of eight exercises, she shows how we can redistill once more the vital essence of these concepts. less
Recommended by Frank Furedi, and 1 others.

Frank FurediThis is my favourite book by far, and it the one which has influenced my own writing the most. It's a compilation of essays written by Hannah Arendt, the most interesting of which is called ‘The Crisis in Education’. The essay is about how this is something which is endemic to modern life. She argues that education is affected by the difficulties society encounters in trying to strike a balance... (Source)

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2
Recommended by Frank Furedi, and 1 others.

Frank FurediAlthough I don’t agree with everything the author Bantock writes, I find his work very interesting. In Freedom and Authority, he makes an interesting attempt to link together issues to do with philosophy, pedagogy, politics and psychology, locating education in its wider cultural setting. What he’s really arguing in the book is that schools need to have a more purposeful intellectual mission. The... (Source)

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3
For the past one hundred years, Americans have argued and worried about the quality of their schools. Some have charged that students were not learning enough, while others have complained that the schools were not in the forefront of social progress. In this authoritative history of education in the twentieth century, historian Diane Ravitch describes this ongoing battle of ideas and explains why school reform has so often failed. "Left Back" recounts grandiose efforts by education reformers to use the schools to promote social and political goals, even when they diminished the schools'... more
Recommended by Frank Furedi, and 1 others.

Frank FurediWhat really comes across when you read Left Back, which is a history of American educational policy over the last hundred years, is that there has always been a certain amount of tension about what a school was for. The author Diane Ravitch finds that when we look at the American education system, one of the ideas that have grown increasingly popular is the view that school can be a place which... (Source)

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4

The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education

The silent ascendancy of a therapeutic ethos across the education system and into the workplace demands a book that serves as a wake up call to everyone. Kathryn Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes' controversial and compelling book uses a wealth of examples across the education system, from primary schools to university, and the workplace to show how therapeutic education is turning children, young people and adults into anxious and self-preoccupied individuals rather than aspiring, optimistic and resilient learners who want to know everything about the world.

The chapters address a...
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Recommended by Frank Furedi, and 1 others.

Frank FurediThe Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education discusses the recent attempts, within the last five or ten years, to take a ‘therapeutic’ approach to education. This approach was born out of the whole self-esteem movement in the USA, which is based around trying to make people feel better about themselves. Ecclestone and Hayes argue that as this approach has been introduced, the way children feel has... (Source)

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5
'This book tackles some of the most important educational questions of the day... It is rare to find a book on education which is theoretically sophisticated and practically relevant: this book is.' From the Foreword by Hugh Lauder

What is it in the twenty-first century that we want young people, and adults returning to study, to know? What is it about the kind of knowledge that people can acquire at school, college or university that distinguishes it from the knowledge that people acquire in their everyday lives everyday lives, at work, and in their families?
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Recommended by Frank Furedi, and 1 others.

Frank FurediI think there are a number of problems with contemporary education. One of the main ones is the way we have undermined authority of subject-based knowledge. Increasingly, teachers are seen as mentors and facilitators, rather than as people who have authority based upon an understanding of their subject. Another problem is that we tend to think of education very pragmatically, as being something... (Source)

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