{"product_id":"reading-wars-don-herzog-9781911712510","title":"Reading Wars","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eReading Wars\u003c\/em\u003e explores heated, even murderous, political struggles over who gets to read and what they get to read. Those conflicts, once again in the news, stretch back centuries. In this book, Don Herzog examines the history and politics of anxieties about readers and reading, spanning both the United States and Britain, from the 1500s right up to contemporary battles over banning library books and freedom of speech. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn these pages, Herzog deftly interweaves episodes from Reformation England, when first Catholics and then Protestants cracked down on unsupervised Bible-reading, with the deadly campaigns in pre-Civil War America to keep black people - both free and enslaved - illiterate. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, he reconstructs arguments insisting that ordinary men and women could not be trusted to read what they liked - indeed, that some of them ought not read at all. And he charts struggles to promote literacy. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHerzog argues that at stake in these battles is whether some people - those banned from reading - are perceived as not fully human, or lesser persons than others. The radical campaign to let more or less everyone read more or less everything is ultimately, therefore, a campaign for equality.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Don Herzog\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1911712519\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781911712510\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Lse Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/23\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 288\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.85lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.60d","brand":"Don Herzog","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48437702885631,"sku":"9781911712510","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_a8fd57bc-5538-4033-8d94-9598e94c8c09.jpg?v=1777163505","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/reading-wars-don-herzog-9781911712510","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}