Murphy (education, Vanderbilt U.) examines the homeschooling movement in the US, its increase, and what it reveals about education and schooling in the US. He considers its demographics, including the income, education, and occupation of parents; its history and development, with an emphasis on the contemporary movement; conditions that foster it; parent motivations; instructional methods and curricular programs; its impact on children and schooling in general; explanations for its positive effects; and what it reveals about the privatization and school choice movements, conservativism in the US over the past 30 years, tensions between the individual and community, the place of religion in the US, the nature of American families, and the role of the government. He does not address homeschooling for special groups in detail, or how to start or conduct a homeschool. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)