Book description
When a society becomes more affluent, does it lose other values? Are
the skills that education and literacy gave millions wasted on
consuming pop culture? Do the media coerce us into a world of the
superficial and the material - or can they be a force for good?
When Richard Hoggart asked these questions in his 1957 book The
Uses of Literacy Britain was undergoing huge social change, yet
his landmark work has lost none of its pertinence and power today.
Hoggart gives a fascinating insight into the close-knit values of
Northern England's vanishing working-class communities, and weaves
this together with his views on the arrival of a new, homogenous
'mass' US-influenced culture. His headline-grabbing bestseller opened
up a whole new area of cultural study and remains essential reading,
both as a historical document, and as a commentary on class, poverty
and the media.
Richard Hoggart was born in Leeds in 1918. He served with the
Royal Artillery in North Africa from 1940 to 1946, after which he
taught literature at the University of Hull, was visiting professor of
English at the University of Rochester in America and senior lecturer
in English at the University of Leicester. Professor Hoggart has been
a member of numerous bodies and at different times was an Assistant
Director-General of UNESCO, Chairman of the New Statesman and
Vice-Chairman of the Arts Council.
The Uses of Literacy, his most widely acclaimed work was
partly autobiographical and drawn from his own boyhood growing up in
the North of England.
