This book is a remarkable feat of scholarship - so remarkable in fact that I put it in the same league as the great classics of the field that had so much to do with setting the direction of Comparative Education. Indeed, this volume goes further than earlier classics to reveal, through textual analysis and interviews with key figures, how the epistemological foundations of the field and crucial professional developments combined to, as the title indicates, construct Comparative Education. Manzon's work is indispensable - a word I do not use lightly - for scholars who seek a genuine grasp of the field: how it was formed and by whom, its major theoreticians, its professional foundations, and so on. Clearly too, this book marks the rise of a young star, Maria Manzon, who shows promise of joining the ranks of our field's most illustrious thinkers. Erwin H. Epstein Director, Center for Comparative Education Loyola University, Chicago, USA

Maria Manzon is a Research Associate of the Comparative Education Research Centre (CERC) at the University of Hong Kong. She was Editor of the CIEclopedia in 2009 and 2010, and Assistant Secretary General of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES) in 2005.