The intellectual life of the British working classes. . - Reviews - book review

The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes. Jonathan Rose. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]29.95. 534 pages. ISBN 0-300-08886-8. The self-educated working man, whose numbers proliferated in the nineteenth century along with the classes that produced them, are perhaps unique to the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world.

They are certainly one of British civilisation's greatest achievements. The tradition is now dead and we are reversing down the hill up which these people climbed. The ability to read was the key but what did these men, and later on, women, actually read and how did their reading shape their lives? This book seeks to answer the question by entering the minds 'of ordinary readers in history, to discover what they read and how they read it'. The author used massive amounts of oral history, educational and library records, sociological surveys, opinion polls and working men's autobiographies as his basis. He is at his best when discussing these people rather than when he flies into the realm of theory to comment on others' theories about yet more theories. He discusses working-class reaction to 'classic literature', informal education, fiction and nonfiction, schools, further education, Marxism, popular culture and the avant-garde. His conclusions make depressive reading: the great works of English literature have been 'devalued by overproduction'. Everyone may now learn but no one cares. The Americans call it 'dumbing down'. (E.B.)

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