Until 1960, two types of publications prevailed in the historiography of adult education--the history of individual educational organizations or establishments and biographical studies concerning leading adult education theoreticians or practitioners. The specificity of the development of adult education historiography since the 1960s is due not only to an increase of interest in the historical aspects of problems but also to a qualitative change in the actual object of study. A result is better recordkeeping and statistics, improved coordination of the endeavors of various institutions, and intensified efforts to keep count of all organizations and institutions operating in the adult education field on a nationwide scale. A series of syntheses on the history of adult education in particular countries has appeared. They are of the following types: (1) the "outline narrative" (Kelly; 1962, 1970), a survey of all printed reports on all activities of adult education from Anglo-Saxon times; (2) organized adult education in the modern state--French approach; (3) focused approach--adult education as workers education; (4) history of precedents--the Czechoslovak example; and (5) supersynthesis or eclecticism, as represented by the history edited by F. Poggeler (1975). Arguably, there is a small chance of success in theorizing the history of adult education, although precisely the history of adult education might contribute to the conceptualization of the theory of adult education. (YLB)