The Revisionists Revived: The Libertarian Historiography of Education

Abstract

Over a decade ago Jurgen Herbst, in a retrospective review of the field of educational history, noted with considerable perturbation that educational historiography had grown tired and dull. “The revisionist surge, whether traditional or radical, has spent itself,” said Herbst, and nothing new or interesting has emerged to replace it. A year later, in March of 2000, a major invitation-only conference sponsored by the Spencer Foundation was held to discuss the state of the field. Some of the conference's conclusions were published by Ruben Donato and Marvin Lazerson, who prefaced their comments on the current state of the field with a refresher on the “Golden Era” of the late 1960s and 1970s, noting that for many, in the words of one attendee, the passion of those days “is somehow lost. We don't know where we're heading. We don't know what we're doing.”