Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know (Paperback)

by E.D. Hirsch Jr. (Author) "This book explains why we need to make some very specific educational changes in order to achieve a higher level of national literacy..." (more)
Key Phrases: educational formalism, mature literacy, literacy and cultural literacy, United States, Cardinal Principles, Declaration of Independence (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Fascinating reading, particularly when we bear in mind thatit is an attempt to establish what all culturally literate Americans actually know, not what they ought to know.Mr. Hirsch's proposal merits serious consideration. --New York Times --This text refers to the CD-ROM edition.

Product Description
In this forceful manifesto, Hirsch argues that children in the U.S. are being deprived of the basic knowledge that would enable them to function in contemporary society. Includes 5,000 essential facts to know.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage Books ed edition (April 12, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394758439
• ISBN-13: 978-0394758435
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #51,499 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

93 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another threat to America -- the cultural illiterate, July 13, 2002

By	R. Tiedemann "Sunnye" (Bellevue, NE USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Put this on your To-Read-No-Matter-What list.

Hasn't the popularity of "Dummies" books raised a red flag anywhere? What does that say about the average American reader's view of him/herself? Do we sense that we're educationally lacking?

Too many of America's young people do not have, because they haven't been taught, the knowledge they need to preserve the exceptional way of life they've inherited. They know Harry Potter and West Wing but not the Peloponnesian Wars or who said, "To be or not to be." They are culturally illiterate.

Cultural literacy is the background information we need to know in order to understand and to communicate in our society. Without it we wouldn't understand what a reviewer says when he likens Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman" to "Cinderella" or when a pundit says the environment is a politician's Achilles heel.

"To be culturally literate," Hirsch says, "is to possess the basic information needed to thrive in the modern world." Readers must understand the writer's unspoken "systems of associations."

I've taught college-level writing classes and have been astounded to meet students who have never read a book, who don't understand the simplest references to classical literature and who, frankly, don't care.

This ignorance threatens our very existence as a free nation. One of the most important points Hirsch makes is the need for the average citizen to understand enough science to comprehend debates about environmental and political issues. He cites the debate over the Strategic Defense Initiative and says of the voting public, "...their education should have provided them with the general facts and principles needed to understand the terms of the debate -- how a satellite works, what a laser is and can do, and under what conditions such a system would be likely to succeed or fail." He neglects to mention the historical, social and political backgrounds that enter into the debate but his point applies to those as well.

The highest stakes are involved here. The last election was a primary example of the ignorance of the American voter. Many still don't understand what happened and are merrily led down a primrose path of misunderstanding by an equally Constitutionally (as in the US Constitution)uninformed press. Further, and even sadder, they don't bother to find out!

Read CULTURAL LITERACY. Absorb it. Make it your mantra and work to see that the next generation of Americans learns the background of their culture as well as the history, sociology and science they need to protect our way of life at the ballot box.

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected but OK, February 1, 2006

By	Hoke (USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

First off I think some reviewers are giving people the wrong idea of what this book has to offer. I think they meant to review the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy and not this book. After reading some of their reviews I purchased this book and it is not exactly what they led me to believe it was.

This book is made up of essentially two parts. The first part Hirsch put forth his theory that Americans are losing their ability to communicate effectively because they are lacking a common knowledge on certain core items. He sites back when people had a more standard education and were forced to read more because of a lack of television they were more commonly grounded in the same types of information.

To explain this theory simply he illustrates giving directions in a city when people assume you are a native to that city. The directions are simple because it is assumed one is familiar with certain landmarks (core knowledge). When giving directions to someone the believe to be a tourist, the directions get a lot more detailed because these people presumably lack the same knowledge of landmarks (core knowledge).

It is a very interesting theory and he backs it up with a lot of research. This book would be of great interest to anyone that is an educator by profession. It might be a little boring to anyone else. Some people have commented that this is a very conservative or right-leaning book. I really don't see that at all. He looks at this theory from the perspective of other cultures as well and the theory holds up. He does say that things people need to know to be culturally literate are often based on Western culture. This is true for the most part. He should not be vilified for pointing out the obvious. He doesn't say that one society is better than another. He just acknowledges that people of different cultures tend to have knowledge of certain things and that it is helpful to be familiar with those items.

The second part is an extensive list of cultural knowledge that experts have agreed on 90% of the time to be relevant. This is only a list. In no way does it define them or elaborate on them. That is what is supposedly spelled out in the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, the book I thought I was getting.

If you are an educator or interested in educating get this book. If you are interested in getting an education then skip this one.

42 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading for all concerned with education., August 15, 1999

By	James W. Susky (Anchorage, Alaska United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I read this book in 1995 and found it fundamentally correct with respect to two ideas: 1) that a core of knowledge is necessary to infer, read-between-the-lines, and to understand wholly much written material; 2) that *content* is vital in education - the mental organization of which (though association and other means) is essential to becoming educated. To demonstrate another assertion, namely that public education is largely failing, Hirsch claims that a majority of high school seniors can not correctly answer this question: "in what decades did the Civil War, World War I, and World War II occur?" I was 35 when I read this and asked it of a 25-year-old architect - who would not even attempt it.