The Hidden History of South Africa's Book and Reading Cultures

Description

The Hidden History of South Africa's Book and Reading Cultures shows how the common practice of reading can illuminate the social and political history of a culture. This ground-breaking study reveals resistance strategies in the reading and writing practices of South Africans; strategies that have been hidden until now for political reasons relating to the country's liberation struggles. By looking to records from a slave lodge, women's associations, army education units, universities, courts, libraries, prison departments, and political groups, Archie Dick exposes the key works of fiction and non-fiction, magazines, and newspapers that were read and discussed by political activists and prisoners.Uncovering the book and library schemes that elites used to regulate reading, Dick exposes incidences of intellectual fraud, book theft, censorship, and book burning. Through this innovative methodology, Dick aptly shows how South African readers used reading and books to resist unjust regimes and build community across South Africa's class and racial barriers. Cover Contents List of Illustrations List of Tables Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction: The Significance of Common Readers in South Africa 1 Early Readers at the Cape, 1658–1800 2 Literacy, Class, and Regulating Reading, 1800–1850 3 The Women’s Building of Nations: History Books in the Early Twentieth Century 4 Books for Troops in the Second World War 5 Politics and the Libraries, Part One: Book Theft, Intellectual Fraud, and Book Burning, 1950–1971 6 Politics and the Libraries, Part Two: Dissident Readers and Librarians in the 1980s Townships 7 Reading in Exile after Soweto, 1978–1992 8 Combating Censorship and Making Space for Books Conclusion: Revealing the Hidden Books and Hidden Readers Notes Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y Z