Introduction

We have argued in the preceding chapters that the “literacy thesis” attributing extensive sociocultural and cognitive change to a general literacy was untenable, but also that the situated, ethnographic approach – notwithstanding the contributions of studies within this tradition – has failed to confront the intellectual, cultural, and political significance of the dichotomy oral/written. We are going to suggest a way out of this impasse by drawing upon and presenting historical accounts. Historical studies of the “uses of literacy” during different phases of modern Western culture portray a complex interplay of text-and-talk which was part of the emergence of new forms of identity, power, and communication. Such historical research supports the emphasis on a “bottom-up” view of literacy taken by ethnographers of literacy, but it also suggests specific connections between changing literacy practices and political and economic conditions in Europe and North America.