This book is a compelling collection of essays by one of the pioneers of revisionist approaches to the history of literacy in North America and Europe. First published in 1987, Labyrinths of Literacy is now available in an expanded version, with a new foreword by Shirley Brice Heath and a new preface by the author. It offers original and controversial views on the relation of literacy to society, leading the way for scholars and citizens who are willing to question the importance and function of literacy in the development of society today.
"Breaks new ground....Readers who don't want their current assumptions about literacy's place in the world to be challenged should not read this book. Those who want to engage with a text, tussling with and reflecting upon important philosophical, historical and social issues should buy this book." --Discourse Processing Forum
"Harvey Graff has been exploring and mapping the labyrinths of literacy since the early 1970s. In a steady stream of books and essays, Graff has been busily 'deconstructing' our conventional conceptions of literacy as a precondition to meaningful reconstruction....In chapters that vary in terms of specific focus, depth and nature of criticism, and explicitness of theoretical and policy orientations, Graff offers his readers a series of compass readings that have led him into--but not necessarily out of--the labyrinth of literacy." --Jennings L. Wagoner, Jr., Journal of Educational Administration and History
Harvey J. Graff is Director of the Division of Behavioral and Cultural Sciences and Professor of History at The University of Texas at San Antonio. He is the author of many articles and books, including The Literacy Myth: Literacy and Social Structure in the Nineteenth-Century City and The Legacies of Literacy: Continuities and Contraditions in Western Society and Culture.
| March 1995 (1987)
Approx. 378 pages 6 x 9 1/8 /W Paper ISBN 0-8229-5562-8 $22.95s* |
University of Pittsburgh Press
c/o CUP Services Box 6525 Ithaca, NY 14851 |