The Common Writer in Modern History - by Martyn Lyons (Paperback)

About the Book

This edited collection focusses on the writing of ordinary, semi-literate people in history, emphasising the agency and voices of the subordinate classes and contesting conventional histories that treat them as passive or silent. It analyses 'ordinary writings' across a range of geographical areas, historical periods and scholarly disciplines.

Book Synopsis

This book underlines the importance of writing for the subordinate classes, and the variety of uses to which it was put. In eleven new studies by thirteen leading historians of scribal culture, it foregrounds the 'common writer' and contributes to a 'New History from Below'. The book presents pauper letters, ego-documents, life-writing of various kinds, soldiers' and emigrants' correspondence, handwritten newspapers and graffiti in streets and prisons, analysing the major genres of 'ordinary writings'. The studies draw on different disciplines, including cultural history, sociology and ethnography, folklore studies, palaeography and socio-historical linguistics. They range from the early modern Hispanic Empire to twentieth-century Australia, including studies of modern Britain, Iceland, Finland, Italy, Germany, South Africa and the USA. The book demonstrates the importance of studying manuscript culture to give a voice, a presence and dignity to the ordinary protagonists of history.

From the Back Cover

The common writer in modern history spotlights the writing of ordinary, semi-literate people in history, emphasising the agency and voices of the subordinate classes and contesting conventional histories that treat them as passive or silent.
In eleven new studies by thirteen leading historians of scribal culture, this book foregrounds the 'common writer' and contributes to a 'New History from Below', which attempts to give voice and agency to those often marginalised by grand historical narratives. In presenting ego-documents, life-writing of various kinds, soldiers' and emigrants' correspondence and graffiti in streets and prisons, it opens up the possibility of an alternative history which contrasts with conventional top-down accounts told from the perspective of elites. The volume focusses on the concerns and assumptions of the so-called silent masses and finds them to have been not so silent after all. It explores neglected writing which provides an insight into the cultural universe of the poor, the mental world of the soldier and the personal struggles of the young emigrant or pauper.
The contributors draw on different disciplines, including cultural history, sociology and ethnography, folklore studies, palaeography and socio-historical linguistics. They cover a broad geographical and chronological range to assess the functions and purposes of writings from below. The collection demonstrates the crucial importance of writing in the past for people of modest social status and imperfect literacy competence. It suggests that ordinary writers can be seen as active agents in their own history, rather than as passive receptacles for official ideologies.

About the Author

Martyn Lyons is Emeritus Professor in History at the University of New South Wales