Raymond Williams: Literature, Marxism and Cultural Materialism (Critics of the Twentieth Century) [Paperback]

John Higgins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 7, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0415023459 | ISBN-13: 978-0415023450

Raymond Williams' prolific output is increasingly recognised as the most influential body of work on literary and cultural studies in the past fifty years. This book provides the most comprehensive study to date of the theoretical and historical context of Williams' thinking on literature, politics and culture.
John Higgins traces:
* Williams' intellectual development
* the related growth of a New Left cultural politics
* the origins of the theory and practice of cultural materialism.
Raymond Williams is an astonishing achievement and will challenge many received ideas about Williams' work.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The first detailed, full-length examination of the whole body of Raymond Williams' work, admirably exhaustive, well-researched and lucidly written." -- Terry Eagleton, Oxford University

About the Author

John Higgins is Senior Lecturer in English and a Convenor of the Theory of Literature Programme at the University of Cape Town. He is the founding editor of the journal Pretexts: Studies in Writing and Culture.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (May 7, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415023459
• ISBN-13: 978-0415023450
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,170,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A delightful incisive book about a delightful, complex man, March 19, 2000

By 

Martin Good (Cambridge, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Raymond Williams: Literature, Marxism and Cultural Materialism (Critics of the Twentieth Century) (Paperback)

I couldn't put it down. For anyone who has been touched by the work that Williams did, this is a must. Higgins takes us on a fascinating intellectual journey with Williams, painstakingly recreating the changing contexts in which Williams' ideas were formed, and giving us the tools to see how they emerged from the debates of the time, from a long struggle between socialism and individualism, which he never really resolved.

One of the problems you have with Williams as a non-academic is that he didn't write simply or clearly - he's hard work. Higgins recreates the great Williams arguments that liberated us from the straightjacket of Leavisite literary criticism, where an elite of critics determined what the "canon of literature" was, and dismissed everything that wasn't in that. The idea of all embracing culture, that culture and literature potentially includes everything that anyone writes - fantastic stuff, and very relevant today in the UK, where some of this appalling stuffiness is returning to orthodoxy with uncomfortable speed.

And in adult education , especially adult literacy, I can see that we owe him so much. I sometimes wonder if the way that the literary establishment excluded ordinary people from taking part has anything to do with the extraordinarily widespread problem in adult literacy - that most of us hate writing.

A must for anyone with a socialist perspective on education.