Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England

Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England
ISBN-10
0521032466
ISBN-13
9780521032469
Category
History
Pages
260
Language
English
Published
2006-11-23
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Author
David Cressy

Description

In this exploration of the social context of reading and writing in pre-industrial England, David Cressy tackles important questions about the limits of participation in the mainstream of early modern society. To what extent could people at different social levels share in political, religious, literary and cultural life; how vital was the ability to read and write; and how widely distributed were these skills? Using a combination of humanist and social-scientific methods, Dr Cressy provides a detailed reconstruction of the profile of literacy in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, looking forward to the eighteenth century and also making comparisons with other European societies.

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