Cultural History of Reading, Volume 1: World Literature

Cultural History of Reading, Volume 1: World Literature
by Gabrielle R. Watling (editor)
Hardcover: 664 pages
Published: November 30, 2008
ISBN-10: 0313337454
ISBN-13: 978-0313337451

Cultural History of Reading explores what people have read and why they have read it, at different times and in different places in America and around the world.
Written in two volumes, the project links key cultural changes and events to the reading material of the period. In doing so, it offers students and teachers a lens through which to better understand the way that culture shapes, and is shaped by, the act of reading.
The set is divided into two volumes, one focused on reading throughout the world, the other focused specifically on reading in the United States. While Volume One explores reading in different regions of the world, Volume Two looks at reading in different periods of American history.
Both volumes trace reading trends through an exploration of types of texts as well as specific examples of books, magazines, and political treatises that were influential and/or widely read. The chapters use a similar organizational framework based on the types of texts readers read. Whereas Volume Two explores reading patterns in the United States from the early colonial period to the present day, Volume One examines reading as a global phenomenon, and includes chapters on the non-U.S. Americas (Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean), Europe and Britain, Asia and the Pacific, South Asia and the Indian Sub-Continent, and Africa and the Middle East.

Contents of Volume 1:
Preface
PART 1: The Americas
1 Canada
2 Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean
3 The Latin American Diaspora
PART 2: Europe and Britain
4 Ancient Greece and Rome
5 Establishment of Christianity
6 Medieval Period
7 The Renaissance
8 The Enlightenment
9 Romanticism and the Nineteenth Century
10 Modernism
11 Post-Modernism
12 A Note on the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Russia
PART 3: Asia and the Pacific
13 Imperial China
14 Modern China
15 Japan
16 Korea
17 Australia and New Zealand
18 The South Pacific and Melanesia
19 A Note on Southeast Asia
PART 4: South Asia and the Indian Sub-Continent
20 The Classical Period
21 European Arrival and the Colonial Period
22 Independence
23 Contemporary Period
PART 5: Africa and the Middle East
24 The Pre- and Early Islamic Period
25 The Ottoman Empire
26 The Modern Middle East
27 Post-Colonial Africa
Appendix—Representative Bibliographies for Other Reading Areas
Index