This is a story of heroes and villains, with a cast of activists and intellectuals, government ministers and state apparatchiks. It reveals a tangle of vested interests, tribal loyalties, clashes in committees and legislative tweaking. It is the story of a subject tossed by political and social ideology and the struggle between professional autonomy and centralised control.

Described as a curriculum policy case study, the book is a 20-year history of geography by someone who played a key role in the events. Eleanor Rawling was a geography teacher, director of two curriculum projects, president of the Geographical Association and a member of the national curriculum geography working group. She is now principal officer for geography at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. More than a simple memoir, it is a carefully evidenced piece of research that acknowledges the methodological difficulties and the opportunities presented by participant history.

Although it begins in the Seventies heyday of curriculum development, it is a narrative of the national curriculum in geography. The most distinctive contribution Rawling makes to this account is her attempt to locate it within the context of changing ideas and beliefs about the nature and purpose of the subject and its place in the curriculum. The book is strong on the macro-political scene and the detail of change, and is best in its analysis of the relationship between the “third way” of New Labour politics and the concerns of geography education.

Globalisation, sustainable development and citizenship feature prominently in the Government’s educational rhetoric, yet ministers have failed to strengthen and secure the subject best able to engage young people with these priorities. Some issues remain unexplored: why geography’s most distinctive subject-specific skill (the use of geographic information systems in spatial decision-making) has not figured more prominently in curriculum content specification or in efforts to raise the subject’s image.

Nevertheless, Rawling deals admirably with the way in which recent policy has marginalised geography, and she concludes by presenting her own views on what geography educators should do next, including developing an essential “geographical entitlement” for young people and reviving and extending notions of disciplinary-based professionalism.

This is an important book that raises big questions about the impact of policy on all subjects. It extends the work of earlier curriculum histories and re-energises the debate on curriculum theory.

Patrick Wiegand is reader in geography education at the University of Leeds