"TRULY REVOLUTIONARY" (IVAN ILLICH)

FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. (New York): Herder and Herder, (1970). Octavo, original ivory cloth, original dust jacket. $800.

First edition in English, preceded by the Portuguese edition, of Freire's timeless classic, in the original dust jacket.

Freire, who died in 1997, based Pedagogy of the Oppressed on his experience teaching illiterate poor Brazilians in the 1960s. To Freire, "just as important as learning to read was the growth of social consciousness and action… learning to read was more than a step in education: it was a means of helping victims of oppression change their situation in an unjust society. 'In order for the oppressed to be able to wage the struggle for their liberation,' Freire writes, 'they must perceive the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform'" (New York Times). His philosophy and the methods he developed in Pedagogy of the Oppressed have been endorsed "by scholars and practitioners in a wide range of other fields, including theology, philosophy, sociology, politics, women's studies, nursing, counseling, social work, disability studies and peace studies… the themes of love and hope figure prominently throughout his work" (Oxford Research Encyclopedia). Ivan Illich calls Pedagogy of the Oppressed "truly revolutionary." To Stanley Aronowitz, it "meets the single criterion of a 'classic': it has outlived his own time and its author's." First edition in English: preceded by the 1968 Portuguese edition. With translation by Myra Bergman Ramos, "from the original Portuguese manuscript, 1968."

Interior fine, foxing as usual to cloth; dust jacket bright. An extremely good copy.