Scottish Literacy and the Scottish Identity: Illiteracy and Society in Scotland and Northern England, 1600-1800

by R. A. Houston

Overview

Scottish education and literacy have achieved a legendary status. A campaign promoted by church and state between 1560 and 1696 is said to have produced the most literate population in the early modern world. This book sets out to test this belief by comparing the ability to read and write in Scotland with northern England in particular and with Europe and North America in general. It combines extensive statistical analysis with qualitative and theoretical discussion to produce an important argument about the significance of literacy and education for the individual and society of relevance not just to the Scottish experience but to a far broader social and geographical area.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521890885
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/20/2002
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time , #4
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.02(w) x 9.06(h) x 0.94(d)

Table of Contents

Tables; Abbreviations; Preface; 1. The ideal of Scottish literacy; 2. Structures and trends in illiteracy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; 3. Illiteracy in mid seventeenth-century Britain; 4. The reasons for literacy; 5. Measures of literacy; 6. Oral culture and literate culture; 7. The politics of literacy; 8. Literacy and the Scottish identity; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.