The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working-Class Life

• Richard Hoggart
• Penguin Modern Classics, 2009
• Paperback, 370 pages
• 9780141191584

Hoggart gives a fascinating insight into the close-knit values of Northern England's vanishing working-class communities, and weaves this together with his views on the arrival of a new, homogenous "mass" U.S.-influenced culture. His headline grabbing bestseller (1957) opened up a whole new area of cultural study and remains essential reading, both as a historical document, and as a commentary on class, poverty and the media.