The first full-length study of the life and career of Brian Simon (1915–2002), a leading Marxist intellectual and historian of education in twentieth-century Britain.

Using documentary sources that have only recently become publicly available, this book reveals the remarkably broad range of Brian Simon’s life as a student, soldier, schoolteacher, Communist Party activist, educational academic, campaigner, and reformer. In a sympathetic biography that retains critical distance, the authors analyze Simon’s contribution to Marxism and the Communist Party, explore the influence of both on his work as a historian of education, and trace the significance of his Marxist beliefs, political associations, and historical approaches to the cause of educational reform.

In so doing, they consider the full nature and limitations of Simon’s achievements in his struggle for education. Unlike many Marxist scholars, he remained loyal to the Communist Party in the 1950s, which damaged his reputation as a public intellectual. Nevertheless, his support for comprehensive education helped to promote egalitarian educational reforms in Britain, although he was later unable to provide sufficient resistance to the 1988 Education Reform Act and to a decline in the position of comprehensive schools.

In all this, the significance of Simon’s family, and especially his relationship with his wife Joan, is brought to the fore. Joan and Brian forged a formidable sixty-year partnership in politics and the Communist Party as well as in life, a partnership that lasted until Brian’s death in January 2002. 
 

Gary McCulloch is the inaugural Brian Simon Professor of the History of Education and the founding director of the International Centre for Historical Research in Education at the IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society. Antonio Canales is doctor in history at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and a full professor in the history of education at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Hsiao-Yuh Ku is associate professor at the National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan.  

List of figuresAbbreviationsAcknowledgements 

1
Introduction 

2
The making of a Marxist intellectual 

3
Soldier and school teacher in the 1940s 

4
Marxism, psychology and pedagogy 

5
An emerging public figure 

6
Chairman of the National Cultural Committee of the Communist Party 

7
Campaign for comprehensive education 1951-1979 


8
Defending comprehensive education 1979-1990   

9
Afterthoughts and last words 

Bibliography