Book excerpt: This set reprints volumes 1, 2 and 3 of James Bowen's A History of Western Education originally published by Methuen in the 1970s. Volume One: The Ancient World: Orient and Mediterranean 2000B.C - A.D. 1054 The volume traces the development of education in the ancient world from the first scribal cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt to learning in the early Christian church. A detailed account is given of the acheivements of Greece in literacy, learning, philosophy and training for public life - achievements which were further developed in the Hellenistic Orient and incorporated by the Romans into their own highly organized educational system. This leads to the emergence of a specifically Christian ideal of education, the decline of secular learning in the West, and the preservation of learning both in Byzantium and in Western monasticism. Volume Two: Civilization of Europe: Sixth to Sixteenth Century Volume Two follows the growth and process of learning in Europe from its foundations in the Carolingian era through its evolution in medieval Europe - especially italy, France, Germany and England - to its expansion and refinement in the sixteenth century. Particular attention is paid to: * The role of medieval institutions of the cathedral and grammer schools and the university * The contribution of notable scholars of the age such as Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, Erasmus and Luther Volume Three: The Modern West: Europe and the New World The final volume covers the period of educational dissent, which became conspicuous in the early seventeenth century and reached crisis proportions in the late twentieth, when the dominant ideologies of progress and equality, generated at the beginning of the nineteenth century, were questioned for the first time on a widespread, popular scale.