Reading Wars

Reading Wars explores heated, even murderous, political struggles over who gets to read and what they get to read. Those conflicts, once again in the news, stretch back centuries. In this book, Don Herzog examines the history and politics of anxieties about readers and reading, spanning both the Uni...

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Главный автор: Herzog, Don
Формат: Online
Язык:английский
Опубликовано: LSE Press 2026
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Online-ссылка:ONIX_20260429T161218_9781911712527_4
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author Herzog, Don
author_browse Herzog, Don
author_facet Herzog, Don
author_sort Herzog, Don
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description Reading Wars explores heated, even murderous, political struggles over who gets to read and what they get to read. Those conflicts, once again in the news, stretch back centuries. In this book, Don Herzog examines the history and politics of anxieties about readers and reading, spanning both the United States and Britain, from the 1500s right up to contemporary battles over banning library books and freedom of speech. In these pages, Herzog deftly interweaves episodes from Reformation England, when first Catholics and then Protestants cracked down on unsupervised Bible-reading, with the deadly campaigns in pre-Civil War America to keep black people – both free and enslaved – illiterate. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, he reconstructs arguments insisting that ordinary men and women could not be trusted to read what they liked – indeed, that some of them ought not read at all. And he charts struggles to promote literacy. Herzog argues that at stake in these battles is whether some people – those banned from reading – are perceived as not fully human, or lesser persons than others. The radical campaign to let more or less everyone read more or less everything is ultimately, therefore, a campaign for equality.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-1761762026-05-05T05:07:10Z Reading Wars Herzog, Don Censorship Education Free Speech Literacy Personhood thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBF Social and ethical issues::JBFV Ethical issues and debates::JBFV3 Ethical issues: censorship thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHT History: specific events and topics::NHTB Social and cultural history Reading Wars explores heated, even murderous, political struggles over who gets to read and what they get to read. Those conflicts, once again in the news, stretch back centuries. In this book, Don Herzog examines the history and politics of anxieties about readers and reading, spanning both the United States and Britain, from the 1500s right up to contemporary battles over banning library books and freedom of speech. In these pages, Herzog deftly interweaves episodes from Reformation England, when first Catholics and then Protestants cracked down on unsupervised Bible-reading, with the deadly campaigns in pre-Civil War America to keep black people – both free and enslaved – illiterate. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, he reconstructs arguments insisting that ordinary men and women could not be trusted to read what they liked – indeed, that some of them ought not read at all. And he charts struggles to promote literacy. Herzog argues that at stake in these battles is whether some people – those banned from reading – are perceived as not fully human, or lesser persons than others. The radical campaign to let more or less everyone read more or less everything is ultimately, therefore, a campaign for equality. 2026-05-05T05:07:09Z 2026-05-05T05:07:09Z 2026-05-04T09:04:03Z 2026 book ONIX_20260429T161218_9781911712527_4 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/112930 9781911712527 9781911712510 9781911712534 9781911712541 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/176176 eng open access image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/112930/1/9781911712527.pdf LSE Press LSE Press 10.31389/lsepress.rew 10.31389/lsepress.rew 74dc3a2f-c8d1-428d-b77c-3bec749428da 9781911712527 9781911712510 9781911712534 9781911712541 LSE Press 288 London, UK open access
spellingShingle Censorship
Education
Free Speech
Literacy
Personhood
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBF Social and ethical issues::JBFV Ethical issues and debates::JBFV3 Ethical issues: censorship
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHT History: specific events and topics::NHTB Social and cultural history
Herzog, Don
Reading Wars
title Reading Wars
title_full Reading Wars
title_fullStr Reading Wars
title_full_unstemmed Reading Wars
title_short Reading Wars
title_sort reading wars
topic Censorship
Education
Free Speech
Literacy
Personhood
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBF Social and ethical issues::JBFV Ethical issues and debates::JBFV3 Ethical issues: censorship
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHT History: specific events and topics::NHTB Social and cultural history
topic_facet Censorship
Education
Free Speech
Literacy
Personhood
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBF Social and ethical issues::JBFV Ethical issues and debates::JBFV3 Ethical issues: censorship
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHT History: specific events and topics::NHTB Social and cultural history
url ONIX_20260429T161218_9781911712527_4
work_keys_str_mv AT herzogdon readingwars