ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the sub sequence chapters of this book. The book takes a glance backwards in time to the eighteenth century, when Bildung began its ascendancy in educational discourse. It examines how the concept of Bildung, a much older concept with, very little relevance to education, came to be central and how the concept continued to develop through the late eighteenth century in Germany. The book describes the religious roots of Bildung in Pietism, whence it acquired the sense of inwardness. It reconstructs the religious, philosophical, political, ethical, and aesthetic background of Bildung and the fundaments of the educationalized world. The book reconstructs the concept of Bildung as a national construct and shows how in the nineteenth century schooling and nation-building were tandem endeavors. It discusses the various attempts at cross-Atlantic exchange made in the course of the nineteenth century.
