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mcsangel2's review
2.0
I read a lot of histories and nonfiction, so I've read my share of academic style texts, but this was much more academic than I was expecting. My current obsession is the history of the British working class in the 20th century, and this book was referenced a lot in my other readings. It truly was not what I was expecting. I would estimate there was about 30 pages total of truly interesting material, and the rest was a lot of referencing old cliches and ramblings that made my eyes glaze over.
futurelegend's review
5.0
This is a book I've meant to read for years. It's a bit of an icon, because when it was published it was something genuinely new; an attempt to pin down the culture of the northern working classes and assess how general social changes have influenced it. As such, it was a pioneer of that much-derided and misunderstood area of academia, Media Studies.
It was first published more than fifty years ago, and we would expect that society has moved on a great deal since then and its relevance might be diluted. What seems surprising, however, is how much of this world of the dour, post-WW2 fifties is still recognisable in our own time. Step back fifty years from its publication and we are in Edwardian England; a world of horse-drawn carriages and gas-lights, of domestic servitude and deference. Step forward fifty years and there's still the motor-car and electricity, sensational tabloids, pop music and cinema. The government then as now embroiled in the Middle East, the teenagers much like our teenagers, and their young queen is now our elderly queen, but the same queen for all that. There is one big difference as a consequence of that similarity; when today's young people look back on the lives of their grandparents they (if they are honest) see themselves in similar conditions. In 1957, older people still had roots in that older world of deference and a more rural society with its distinctive regional culture and dialects. The mass media of the fifties changed all that, creating a more homogenised society. Was this a good thing? In some ways yes, but perhaps with its candy-floss ways it's a shallower one.
The Uses of Literacy is a classic and fully deserves to be so. What makes it especially valuable is that it is a serious academic work by a serious academic which is yet complete accessible to the lay reader. That is not something that can often be said these days. My copy is an original Pelican edition; it says a lot, which Professor Hoggart would no doubt have had something to say about, that there are no more Pelicans and the lay reader is now treated with less respect; today's equivalent would be presented by a celebrity in the way that those old learned television documentary series by Jacob Bronowski and Kenneth Clark have been displaced by excitable comedians. I'm not sure that this doesn't reinforce what the book has to say.
It was first published more than fifty years ago, and we would expect that society has moved on a great deal since then and its relevance might be diluted. What seems surprising, however, is how much of this world of the dour, post-WW2 fifties is still recognisable in our own time. Step back fifty years from its publication and we are in Edwardian England; a world of horse-drawn carriages and gas-lights, of domestic servitude and deference. Step forward fifty years and there's still the motor-car and electricity, sensational tabloids, pop music and cinema. The government then as now embroiled in the Middle East, the teenagers much like our teenagers, and their young queen is now our elderly queen, but the same queen for all that. There is one big difference as a consequence of that similarity; when today's young people look back on the lives of their grandparents they (if they are honest) see themselves in similar conditions. In 1957, older people still had roots in that older world of deference and a more rural society with its distinctive regional culture and dialects. The mass media of the fifties changed all that, creating a more homogenised society. Was this a good thing? In some ways yes, but perhaps with its candy-floss ways it's a shallower one.
The Uses of Literacy is a classic and fully deserves to be so. What makes it especially valuable is that it is a serious academic work by a serious academic which is yet complete accessible to the lay reader. That is not something that can often be said these days. My copy is an original Pelican edition; it says a lot, which Professor Hoggart would no doubt have had something to say about, that there are no more Pelicans and the lay reader is now treated with less respect; today's equivalent would be presented by a celebrity in the way that those old learned television documentary series by Jacob Bronowski and Kenneth Clark have been displaced by excitable comedians. I'm not sure that this doesn't reinforce what the book has to say.
markfeltskog's review
First published in 1957, this is deservedly a classic of observational sociology, even if a bit dated. I found myself thinking, as I read it, that it would make a perfect companion to George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier.
katherinew's review against another edition
2.0
I'm struggling with this one a bit. It is quite dated and patronising.
The interview at the end from 1990 gives really helpful context. I suggest reading the interview and then dipping into the book.
The interview at the end from 1990 gives really helpful context. I suggest reading the interview and then dipping into the book.
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