The focus of this volume is on illuminating how local educational traditions developed in particular contexts around the world before or during the encounter with European early modern culture. In this vein, this volume breaks from the common narrative of educational historiography privileging the imposition of European structures and its consequences on local educational traditions. Such a narrative lends to historiographical prejudice that fosters a distorted image of indigenous educational cultures as “historyless,” as if history was brought to them merely through the influence of European models. Fifteen multi-disciplinary scholars globally have contributed with surveys and perspectives on the history of local traditions in countries from around the globe before their own modernities.

Contributors include: Guochang Shen, Yongyan Wang, Xia Shen, Gaétan Rappo, Sunghwan Hwang, Jan S. Aritonang, Mere Skerrett, Saiyid Zaheer Husain Jafri, Zackery M. Heern, Judith Francis Zeitlin, Layla Jorge Teixeira Cesar, Mustafa Gündüz, Igor Fedyukin, Edit Szegedi, Inese Runce, Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon, and Davíð Ólafsson.