The Levellers, political literacy and contemporary citizenship education in England

This paper analyses the concept of political literacy (as introduced in the 1998 Crick Report) in relation to Citizenship in the English National Curriculum. It argues that political literacy has not been sufficiently emphasised or facilitated within this foundation subject and that the concept is particularly important for students at a time of considerable political and social conflict in England (and elsewhere). The authors state that engagement with the ideas and practices of the Levellers (a political group writing and agitating at the time of the Civil Wars) could enable students and teachers to explore political literacy (especially the implications of social media) by looking at a political group who utilised mass pamphlettering as a form of political communication. The paper will also investigate the context of Citizenship within the English National Curriculum and some of the philosophical concerns around Citizenship education. It contains a section placing the Levellers in their contemporary and historiographical contexts

Introduction: approaching space in intellectual history

This article serves as an introduction to the special issue on Conceptions of Space in Intellectual History. It opens with a brief inquiry into the place of ‘space’, both as a topic and as an analytical lens, in the field of intellectual history. The remainder of the introduction suggests a pathway through the special issue. Under three broad headings – ‘territory,’ ‘oceans and empire’, and ‘geopolitics’ – the volume’s articles are presented, brought into dialogue, and situated within a wider trajectory of recent research on conceptions of ‘space’ in intellectual history.Arts and Humanities Research Council; Cambridge Commonwealth, European & International Trust; Levy-Plumb Fund for the Humanities at Christ's College, Cambridge