British education is designed to teach about society and power; play and performance, the head and the heart, the spirit and character. It is a preparation for a certain kind of 'modernity'. This book explains how education can make us modern and the ways in which such an education is different from that of Europe and China. 

Alan Macfarlane is a retired Professor of Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and life fellow of King's College, Cambridge. This book complements his Letters to Lily and Reflections for Rosa.