Rancière uses the example of Joseph Jacotot, a French teacher in the late 18th century who taught in Belgium without knowledge of their language (Flemish), to explain the role of liberation after Marxism.

Rancière tells the story of 18th century French teacher Joseph Jacotot without explicit commentary.

Translator Kristin Ross sees the book as uniting Rancière's archival-narrative and polemical styles (xxiii).

She considers that the book may be a satirical polemic against modern sociology, targeting specifically the sociologists Pierre Bourdieu, Rancière's teacher Louis Althusser, and Jean-Claude Milner (xxiii).

The book is a historical moment intervening politically in the present; this is effected by Rancière blurring his voice with that of Jacotot (xxi-ii).

The book is equally relevant to history as to philosophy of education; in the U.S. Rancière is best known among historians (xxi).

While exiled in Belgium, the French-speaking Jacotot taught Flemish-speaking students about the Télémaque using a bilingual French-Flemish translation (1-2).

He writes: "All men have equal intelligence" (18) A review in French Studies wrote that the book would have a small audience outside France due to the specificity of its themes, the resurgence of right-wing politics, and growing unemployment in which few would have the leisure to pursue the inward dialogue Rancière recommends.