Research Catalog

The hidden history of South Africa's book and reading cultures

Title
The hidden history of South Africa's book and reading cultures / Archie L. Dick.
Author
Dick, Archie L.
Publication
Toronto : University of Toronto Press, [2012], ©2012.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Filter by

1 Item

StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
Request for On-site UseRequest Scan
How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?
Book/TextRequest in advance Z1003.5.S6 D53 2012gOff-site

Holdings

Details

Description
xvi, 196 pages : illustrations; 24 cm
Summary
  • "The Hidden History of South Africa's Book and Reading Cultures shows how the common practice of reading can illuminate the social and political history of a culture. This ground-breaking study reveals resistance strategies in the reading and writing practices of South Africans; strategies that have been hidden until now for political reasons relating to the country's liberation struggles.
  • By looking to records from a slave lodge, women's associations, army education units, universities, courts, libraries, prison departments, and political groups, Archie Dick exposes the key works of fiction and non-fiction, magazines, and newspapers that were read and discussed by political activists and prisoners.
  • Uncovering the book and library schemes that elites used to regulate reading, Dick exposes incidences of intellectual fraud, book theft, censorship, and book burning. Through this innovative methodology, Dick aptly shows how South African readers used reading and books to resist unjust regimes and build community across South Africa's class and racial barriers."--pub. desc.
Subjects
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
Introduction: The Significance of Common Readers in South Africa -- 1 Early Readers at the Cape, 1658-1800 -- 2 Literacy, Class, and Regulating Reading, 1800-1850 -- 3 The Women's Building of Nations: History Books in the Early Twentieth Century -- 4 Books for Troops in the Second World War -- 5 Politics and the Libraries, Part One: Book Theft, Intellectual Fraud, and Book Burning, 1950-1971 -- 6 Politics and the Libraries, Part Two: Dissident Readers and Librarians in the 1980s Townships -- 7 Reading in Exile after Soweto, 1978-1992 -- 8 Combating Censorship and Making Space for Books.
ISBN
  • 9781442642898
  • 1442642890
LCCN
99951653161
OCLC
  • ocn768534911
  • 768534911
  • SCSB-5668605
Owning Institutions
Columbia University Libraries