Book review

Italians have always revered the arts and promoted the infusion of beauty and fine design into the quality of everyday life. Perhaps it is this distinctive cultural flair, revealed in fields such as architecture, painting, interior design, graphics, fashion, and cuisine, that has influenced Italy also to become a giant in the field of early childhood education. In the 20th century, Italy has produced two of the world's most innovative and influential leaders: Maria Montessori (1870–1952) fromRome, in southern Italy; and LorisMalagazzi (1920–1994) fromReggio Emilia, in the northern part of the country. Montessori education is the subject of Angeline Lillard's book. Montessori, a brilliant figure who was Italy's first woman physician, created an approach that reflected a late 19th century vision of mental development and theoretical kinship with the great European progressive educational philosophers, Jean-Jacque Rousseau, Johann Pestalozzi and Fredrich Froebel (Edwards, 2002, 2003). The many parallels between her ideas and those of the American progressive, John Dewey, her contemporary, are due to the fact that their ideas grew out of shared theoretical roots and were responsive to the social and cultural transformations engendered by the industrial revolution. Montessori is the only woman regularly listed as one of the very great figures in the history and philosophy of education, and up until 2002 when the European Union issued the Euro as common currency, her country's deep regard was indicated by her face on the Italian 1000 Lira bill. As Lillard's book explains, Montessori's vision anticipated many of the twentieth century's developments in chil