By: Harvey J. Graff (Editor), Deborah Brandt (Contribution by), Michael T. Clanchy (Contribution by), Janet Duitsman Cornelius (Contribution by), Natalie Zemon Davis (Contribution by)

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Representing three decades of research, " Literacy and Historical Development: A Reader" presents some of the most important historical scholarship on literacy in Europe and the United States. The approaches, research, and conclusions reflected in this collection of fifteen essays has changed how historians and many others conceptualize literacy and represents a body of scholarship that is transforming both contemporary and historical literacy theories. In this revised and expanded edition of the groundbreaking volume "Literacy and Social Development in the West, "editor Harvey J. Graff provides a new introduction and nine new essays by nationally and internationally renowned contributors from a range of disciplines. Replacing an unquestioned certainty that literacy's powers are universal, independent, and determinative, Graff brings together studies that support new concepts, contending that the importance and influences of literacy depend on specific social and historical contexts, the impacts of literacy are mediated and restricted, the effects of literacy are social and particular, and the role of literacy must be understood within the burgeoning array of communication technologies.

List of Figures and Tables	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Literacy, Myths, and Legacies: Lessons from the History of Literacy	p. 12
Literate and Illiterate; Hearing and Seeing: England, 1066-1307	p. 38
Some Conjectures about the Impact of Printing on Western Society and Thought: A Preliminary Report	p. 82
The Importance of Being Printed	p. 106
Printing and the People: Early Modern France	p. 126
Oral Culture and the Diffusion of Reformation Ideas	p. 161
The Literacy Myth? Illiteracy in Scotland, 1630-1760	p. 183
First Steps in Literacy: The Reading and Writing Experiences of the Humblest Seventeenth-Century Spiritual Autobiographers	p. 207
The History of Literacy in Sweden	p. 238
Growth of Literacy in Colonial America: Longitudinal Patterns, Economic Models, and the Direction of Future Research	p. 272
Dimensions of Illiteracy in England, 1750-1850	p. 299
''We Slipped and Learned to Read": Slave Accounts of the Literacy Process, 1830-1865	p. 315
Sense and Sensibility: A Case Study of Women's Reading in Late-Victorian America	p. 334
Sponsors of Literacy	p. 357
"Welcome to the Jam": Popular Culture, School Literacy, and the Making of Childhoods	p. 379
Bibliography of the History of Literacy in Western Europe and North America	p. 417
Contributors	p. 441
Index	p. 445
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 9780809327829
ISBN-10: 0809327821
Audience: General
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 448
Published: 1st December 2007
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
Dimensions (cm): 23.5 x 15.6  x 2.9
Weight (kg): 0.667