Neoliberalism and After?

Michael A. Peters is Professor of Education in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Adjunct Professor in the School of Art at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia. He is the editor of three journals: Educational Philosophy and Theory, Policy Futures in Education, and E-Learning and Digital Media. His most recent books include: The Last Book of Postmodernism: Apocalyptic Thinking, Philosophy and Education in the Twenty-First Century (Peter Lang, 2011); Governmentality Studies in Education (2009); Creativity and the Global Knowledge Economy (with P. Murphy & S. Marginson) (Peter Lang, 2009); Global Knowledge Cultures (with C. Kapitzke) (2007); Subjectivity and Truth: Foucault, Education and the Culture of the Self (with Tina Besley) (Peter Lang, 2008); Building Knowledge Cultures: Educational and Development in the Age of Knowledge Capitalism (with Tina Besley) (2006); and Knowledge Economy, Development and the Future of the University (2007).

«In this crisp, elegant volume Michael A. Peters dissects the fascinating history of neoliberalism from its roots in the Mont Pelerin Society and German ordoliberalism, and the Chicago and Public Choice schools, to its irradiation through obscure think tanks into the world of public policy. The impact of neoliberal ideas in the second half of the twentieth century was deep going. Peters, in a reflective mood, assays the metaphors and models of the movement, its impact on the university and the public sector, its challenge to academia as a liberal profession, the neoliberal philosophy of individualism and its paradoxical solicitation of managerialism, its pioneering of the economics of information and contemporary knowledge capitalism, and much else besides. Peters' style is urbane, his tenor is summative, and his analysis is crystal sharp. He revisits Foucault's intricate probing of neoliberal schools and explores the post-modern currents that both criticised and celebrated various forms of neoliberalism. He returns repeatedly to the still-extraordinary case of New Zealand that turned on a penny in the 1980s from entrenched welfare state to neoliberal model, and concludes with the prophecies of 'the end of neoliberalism' that accompanied the global financial crisis. In this book, Peters sums up the experiences of a generation that critiqued the neoliberals without ever conquering them. He does this with pithy erudition and a terse command of the intellectual ardours of the past forty years.» (Peter Murphy, Associate Professor of Communications, Monash University)
«Bringing together findings from several decades of observation and analysis, Michael A. Peters' cosmopolitan survey draws on the recent experience of his own country, Aotearoa/New Zealand, to sharply illuminate the impacts in several countries of neoliberal governmentality on public education policies, and their corrosive implications for public culture and social justice.» (Colin Gordon, Royal Brompton