Literacy and Popular Culture

"It is a major contribution to the field." Edward G. Holley, The Library Quarterly

"David Vincent has given us a book packed with important information that is based on careful research and analysis and provides interesting reading. It is a major contribution to the field." Edward G. Holley, The Library Quarterly

"This is a sophisticated book that makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of modern Britain." Modern Europe

"...Vincent has mastered an impressive range of sources to tackle such topics as occupational recruitment, learning on the job, labor relations, and the changing popular medical remedies of the nineteenth century, to assess the way in which some broke away from the loyal body of oral wisdom in search of a more rational explanation of their environment. As such this book must be the most comprehensive study made so far in the author's chosen field, drawing in as he does the impact of the wider socio-economic and technological changes of the century." Albion

"David Vincent's study... is an impressive achievement both for its empirical depth and its theoretical sophistication...wide-ranging and compelling...certainly the definitive work on the subject for this period." Albion M. Urdank, Journal of Modern History

"This book is rich in insightful anecdotes, quotations from personal diaries, and detailed descriptions of important figures and events. The scholarship is careful and impressive. In short, the book is a solid example of social history." John Boli, American Journal of Sociology

"...a graceful scrupulously detailed and documented sociological tour through an England changing rapidly in response to population growth, to the effects of industrialization, to emerging human values, to the availability of reading materials, and to the extension of basic deucation." Robert Nossen