Reading wars: the story (so far) of Western literacy and the future of free speech

Who gets access to books? And, to what extent does the act of reading shape our humanity? This panel event brings together Larry Kramer, Don Herzog and Nicola Lacey, chaired by Devika Hovell. They will discuss Don Herzog’s new publication from LSE Press, Reading Wars, which examines the heated, even murderous, political struggles over who gets to read and what they get to read.

Herzog studies 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. The author 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. Herzog argues that at stake in these battles is whether some people – those banned from reading – are 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.