The Hidden History By Alzheimer's Book Summary
Book Review
By
Valerie Persinger
Author: Archie L, Dick
Title: The Hidden History of South Afica’s Book and Reading Cultures
Publication Data:
The Hidden History of South Africa’s Book and Reading Cultures
Author: Dick Archie
Format: Hardcover, 196 pages
Publisher: Univ of Toronto Pr
Publish Date: Apr 2012
ISBN-13: 9781442642898
ISBN-10: 1442642890
Biographical Data for Writer:
Archie L. Dick is a professor in the Department of Information Studies at the University of Pretoria in the Republic of South Africa. He holds undergraduate degrees in library and information science from the University of the Western Cape, South Africa; a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Washington in Seattle; and a doctorate from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He has published articles on the intellectual and historical aspects of library and information science, …show more content…
and he is currently working on a research project dealing with the politics of the regulation of reading in South Africa.
Synopsis of Work:
The Hidden History of South Africa’s Book and Reading Cultures shows how the common practice of reading can illuminate the social and political history of a culture.
This ground breaking study reveals resistance strategies in the reading and writing practicies of South Africans; strategies that have been hidden until now for political reasons relating to the country’s liberation struggles. By looking to record from a slave lodge, women’s associations, army education units, universities, courts, libraries, prison departments, and political groups, Archis Dick exposes the key works of fiction and non fiction, magazines, and newspapers that were read and discussed by political activists and prisoners. Uncovering the book and library schemes that elites used to regulate reading, Dick exposes incidences of intellectual fraud, book theft, censorship, and book burning. Through this innovative methodology, Dick aptly shows how South African readers used reading and books to resist unjust regimes and build community across South Africa’s class and racial
barriers. | |
Reflections/Critique/Recommendations:
This book tells the story of those who helped rejuvinate the anti-apartheid movement within South Africa in the period after the rivonia trials. After the repression of the mid 1960’s the African national congress found most of its leadership in prison or in exile. Its internal organization was almost non existent, with members disconnected from each other and few ways for mass activists, to contact the organization. Rebuilding the internal strycture of resistance became a key task to revitalizing the struggle against Apartheid.
Reasons why the book is useful for the course:
1. This book will educate anyone about African apartheid.
2. It can promote sustainable and optimum services to African researchers, students and learners, who support African Studies and area studies research.
3. This book will also show people that read this book how far we have come as a nation from being in slavery to having the freedom that we have today.
Conclusion: Archie Dick’s Hidden History offers us a fine example of a historian working in an imaginative way to show how, at various junctures in the South African past, book and reading cultures have arisen, survived or even thrived despite the ways in which controlling and repressive regimes have sought to destroy or limit the impact of reading and writing for their own purposes. I think that anyone who wants to explore Africa, this would be a wonderful book to have.
Student: Valerie Persinger
Date: 12-22-2012
Peer Review and Remarks:
Instructor Grade and Feedback:
By
Valerie Persinger
Author: Archie L, Dick
Title: The Hidden History of South Afica’s Book and Reading Cultures
Publication Data:
The Hidden History of South Africa’s Book and Reading Cultures
Author: Dick Archie
Format: Hardcover, 196 pages
Publisher: Univ of Toronto Pr
Publish Date: Apr 2012
ISBN-13: 9781442642898
ISBN-10: 1442642890
Biographical Data for Writer:
Archie L. Dick is a professor in the Department of Information Studies at the University of Pretoria in the Republic of South Africa. He holds undergraduate degrees in library and information science from the University of the Western Cape, South Africa; a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Washington in Seattle; and a doctorate from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He has published articles on the intellectual and historical aspects of library and information science, …show more content…
and he is currently working on a research project dealing with the politics of the regulation of reading in South Africa.
Synopsis of Work:
The Hidden History of South Africa’s Book and Reading Cultures shows how the common practice of reading can illuminate the social and political history of a culture.
This ground breaking study reveals resistance strategies in the reading and writing practicies of South Africans; strategies that have been hidden until now for political reasons relating to the country’s liberation struggles. By looking to record from a slave lodge, women’s associations, army education units, universities, courts, libraries, prison departments, and political groups, Archis Dick exposes the key works of fiction and non fiction, magazines, and newspapers that were read and discussed by political activists and prisoners. Uncovering the book and library schemes that elites used to regulate reading, Dick exposes incidences of intellectual fraud, book theft, censorship, and book burning. Through this innovative methodology, Dick aptly shows how South African readers used reading and books to resist unjust regimes and build community across South Africa’s class and racial
barriers. | |
Reflections/Critique/Recommendations:
This book tells the story of those who helped rejuvinate the anti-apartheid movement within South Africa in the period after the rivonia trials. After the repression of the mid 1960’s the African national congress found most of its leadership in prison or in exile. Its internal organization was almost non existent, with members disconnected from each other and few ways for mass activists, to contact the organization. Rebuilding the internal strycture of resistance became a key task to revitalizing the struggle against Apartheid.
Reasons why the book is useful for the course:
1. This book will educate anyone about African apartheid.
2. It can promote sustainable and optimum services to African researchers, students and learners, who support African Studies and area studies research.
3. This book will also show people that read this book how far we have come as a nation from being in slavery to having the freedom that we have today.
Conclusion: Archie Dick’s Hidden History offers us a fine example of a historian working in an imaginative way to show how, at various junctures in the South African past, book and reading cultures have arisen, survived or even thrived despite the ways in which controlling and repressive regimes have sought to destroy or limit the impact of reading and writing for their own purposes. I think that anyone who wants to explore Africa, this would be a wonderful book to have.
Student: Valerie Persinger
Date: 12-22-2012
Peer Review and Remarks:
Instructor Grade and Feedback: