In October 2012, Teachers College Record published my review of James E. Block’s The Crucible of Consent: American Child Rearing and the Forging of Liberal Society  (Harvard University Press, 2012).

The book is a remarkable mix of erudition and nonsense, with many dashes of hyperbole. It provides a lengthy, fascinating exploration of the evolving, upper-crust, New England discourse on education in the 19th century. On this count, it deserves a thumbs up.

Yet, Block errs massively in also couching this historical exercise in the problem of political consent and utilizing language that treats his exegesis as a description of reality.

That an esteemed university press would let this sort of methodological goof slip is a big problem; that HUP also failed to edit out the book’s bombast and editorializing is inexcusable…(read more)