Commenting on the book, world renowned sociologist, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, from the University of Coimbra writes: “Mayo shows courage in providing a well-argued book that constitutes a powerful appeal for the university to…offer resistance [to Neoliberalism] and [carry] out its democratic and community-oriented mission as a counter current.” One of Critical Pedagogy’s founding figures and leading educationist, Henry Giroux, Professor at McMaster University, states: “this may be the best book we have on the subject” while Educational sociologist and Higher Education researcher, Rosemary Deem, Professor at Royal Holloway College, University of London, writes in her postscript to the volume: “…Mayo’s work is not simply a text which remains at the theoretical level, even though Mayo’s use of social and political theories is highly skilled…[he] also provides valuable examples of university community engagement that he has used in his own higher education institution…”
This is the 22nd book authored (single or joint) or edited by Professor Mayo during his more than thirty years’ experience as an academic teaching at the University of Malta and other universities in different parts of the world. It is the first time he has published a book with Manchester University Press. His previous books were produced, mainly internationally, with such publishing houses as Routledge (four books, one originally with Paradigm Publishers), Wiley-Blackwell, Zed Books, Rowman & Littlefield, Bloomsbury Academic, Zero Books and Praeger (USA and UK), ArtMed Editora and UFSC-UNESC (Brazil), DVV International and Argument (Germany), Brill-Sense (Holland, three books), Società Editrice Fiorentina and Carlo Delfino (Italy), TaroJiro-Sha Editus (Japan) Instituto Paulo Freire de España (5 books in Spanish and Catalan) (Spain) and UTOPYA, Kalkedon (two books) and Dipnot (Turkey), Midsea, Mireva and Allied Publishers (Malta).