When a society becomes more affluent does it lose other values? Are the skills that education & literacy gave millions wasted on consuming pop culture? Do the media coerce us into a world of the superficial & the material
- or can they be a force for good? When Richard Hoggart asked these questions in his 1957 book The Uses of Literacy" Britain was undergoing huge social change yet his landmark work has lost none of its pertinence & power today. Hoggart gives a fascinating insight into the close-knit values of Northern England's vanishing working-class communities & weaves this together with his views on the arrival of a new homogenous 'mass' US-influenced culture. His headline-grabbing bestseller opened up a whole new area of cultural study & remains essential reading both as a historical document & as a commentary on class poverty & the media."