We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
The Life and Opinions of Thomas Preston, Patriot and Shoemaker; containing much that is useful, more that is true, and A great deal more, (perhaps), than is EXPECTED! provides a succinct account of the awakening of its author's political consciousness in the 1790s. Preston was set on the road which was to take him through Spencean radicalism to a trial for High Treason following the 1816 Spa Fields riots by the destruction of his belief in the necessity of the established order:
The increase of reading had dissipated the delusion, and people now knew the meaning of words, whether spoken in the Senate, wrote in a lawyer's bill of costs, or printed on an impress warrant. The charm of Ignorance which had so long lulled my mind into a comparative indifference at the people's wrongs, was now beginning to disappear.
He was able to use the skills picked up during a ‘contracted’ education to engage in an ultimately far-reaching critique of the language which clothed and protected the distribution of power. The impact of the new forms of communication on old forms of authority has been widely observed. ‘Democracy as we know it’, write Goody and Watt, ‘is from the beginning associated with widespread literacy.’ Reading and writing promote political participation. Those who have been to school or who have educated themselves are able to demystify authoritarian regimes and gain access to the information upon which the effective exercise of their newly won rights depends.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
