After setting Augustine's thought firmly within the context of his life and times, Ryan Topping examines in turn the causes of education (the purposes, pedagogy, curriculum, and limits of learning) as Augustine understood them. Augustine's towering influence over Medieval and Renaissance theorists - from Hugh of St Victor, to Aquinas, to Erasmus - is traced. The book concludes by drawing Augustine into dialogue with contemporary philosophers, exploring the influence of his meditations on higher education and suggesting how his ideas can reinvigorate for our generation the project of liberal learning. In the company of St Augustine, Ryan Topping does battle with the skepticism that denies education its proper role in the pursuit of happiness and makes of it instead an exercise in apathy. Those who hope for something better from education can discover it in Augustine, and this pithy volume will go a long way to help them discover Augustine himself.