THE WRITING CULTURE OF ORDINARY PEOPLE IN EUROPE, C.1860-1920 by Martyn Lyons ( 9781107448971 )

Item Details

Title:

THE WRITING CULTURE OF ORDINARY PEOPLE IN EUROPE, C.1860-1920

By:

Martyn Lyons

Format:

Paperback

List price:

£30.99

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£27.89

Discount:

10% off

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£3.10

ISBN 10:

1107448972

ISBN 13:

9781107448971

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Publisher:

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Pub. date:

1 November, 2014

Pages:

292

Description:

A fascinating account of how ordinary people met the challenges of literacy in modern Europe, as distances between people increased.

Synopsis:

As war and mass emigration across oceans increased the distances between ordinary people in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many of them, previously barely literate and unaccustomed to writing, began to communicate on paper. This fascinating account explores this surge of ordinary writing, how people met the new challenges of literacy and the importance of scribal culture to the history of individual experience in modern Europe. Focusing on correspondence and other writing genres produced by French and Italian soldiers in the trenches in the First World War, as well as Spanish emigrants to the Americas, the book reveals how these writings were influenced by dialect and oral speech and were oblivious to the rules of grammar, spelling and punctuation. Through their sometimes moving stories, we gain an insight into the importance to ordinary peasants of family, village and nation at a time of rapid social and cultural change.

Illustrations:

20 b/w illus. 3 maps

Publication:

Imprint:

Cambridge University Press

Returns:

Returnable

Some other items by this author:

A HISTORY OF READING AND WRITING (HB)

A HISTORY OF READING AND WRITING (PB)

APPROACHES TO THE HISTORY OF WRITTEN CULTURE (HB)

AUSTRALIA'S HISTORY (PB)