FALL-WINTER 2013 - University of Toronto Press Publishing

NEW IN PAPERBACKThe Hidden Historyof South Africa’s Book and Reading CulturesArchie L. Dick216 pp / 6 x 9 / Available20 illustrationsPaper 978-1-4426-1592-2$24.95 (£17.99) CeBook 978-1-4426-9508-5 $24.95Book History / Information Studies/ African StudiesThe Hidden History ofSouth Africa’s Bookand Reading CulturesArchie L. DickStudies in Book & Print CultureThe Hidden History of South Africa’s Book and Reading Cultures shows how thecommon practice of reading can illuminate the social and political history of aculture. This ground-breaking study reveals resistance strategies in the readingand writing practices of South Africans; strategies that have been hidden untilnow for political reasons relating to the country’s liberation struggles.By looking to records from a slave lodge, women’s associations, armyeducation units, universities, courts, libraries, prison departments, and politicalgroups, Archie L. Dick exposes the key works of fiction and non-fiction,magazines, and newspapers that were read and discussed by political activistsand prisoners.Uncovering the book and library schemes that elites used to regulatereading, Dick exposes incidences of intellectual fraud, book theft, censorship,and book burning. Through this innovative methodology, Dick ably shows howSouth African readers used reading and books to resist unjust regimes and buildcommunity across South Africa’s class and racial barriers.Archie L. Dick is a professor in the Department of Information Science at theUniversity of Pretoria.“[Archie L. Dick] offers valuable insights into how minority groups in South Africadealt with attempts to control where, what, and how they read ... [The book]effectively demonstrates the value of recovering the means and methods bywhich ordinary readers made sense of their lives, how administrative constructshelped or hindered access to print, and how this access shaped the ideas andworld-views of those caught up in periods of political and social struggle.”David Finkelstein, Times Literary Supplement58Of related interest:Old Books and New HistoriesAn Orientation to Studies inBook and Print CultureLeslie Howsam978-0-8020-9438-4$19.95 / 2006“The Hidden History of South Africa’s Book and Reading Cultures is an important,lucidly written, and well-researched study. Exploring the situation of ‘commonreaders’ over an extraordinary historical breadth, Archie L. Dick addressesquestions ranging from slave literacy to the intersections between books,reading, and the apartheid-era police state.”Peter D. McDonald, Faculty of English, University of OxfordUNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS