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Edna Runnels Ranck Lascarides, V.C. & Hinitz, B.F. (2000). History of Early Childhood Education. New York: Falmer Press, Taylor and Francis Group ISBN: 0-8153-1794-8 662 pp. Price: $80.00 plus shipping charges
Celia Lascarides and Blythe Hinitz, authors of History of Early Childhood Education (HECE), state at the close of Chapter 12 on "Day Nurseries to Day Care to Child Care to Quality 2000," `The child care staff member of the year 2000 will be able to draw on a deep tradition and a creative knowledge base to assist him or her in working with the whole child (p. 373).' The authors have in this in-depth and well-written volume indeed captured the deep tradition and the creative knowledge base of early care and education and have given the updated information as a gift not only to those in early education, but also to the entire field of educational history and to the wider society.
HECE is a remarkable, meaningful and immensely useful publication that will for years to come provide not only many sources of information about the past work in the ECE field, but also, and more importantly, serve as the repository from which these data are made available to historians, researchers, professors, practitioners and policy makers. Readers of this book - even sections of this book - along with many of the references contained in its pages of notes at the end of each chapter - can no longer claim that history is dull and uninteresting. L&H have captured many of the countless stories - some well-known, but others that are brand new - that comprise the ECE field. Many sections expand effectively and usefully on what many ECE historians already know or know in part.
Most importantly, the writers have taken great pains to ensure that the stories, even those already known, are in context, not only...