For the better part of two centuries, the British working class sustained one of the most remarkable intellectual traditions in the history of any civilisation. Miners read Shakespeare. Engine-men debated Darwin. Workmen's institutes built libraries of tens of thousands of volumes. Literacy was not a middle-class gift bestowed on the poor — it was seized, organically, as a route out of drudgery and a form of human dignity claimed on their own terms. Then we severed it. Jonathan Rose spent twenty-five years in the diaries of the people who built this world. This is what he found — and what he thinks it means. Watch or listen below.
Find Jonathan Rose’s work:
The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes — Yale University Press: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300098952/the-intellectual-life-of-the-british-working-classes/
The Literary Churchill: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300196535/the-literary-churchill/
Drew University faculty page: https://www.drew.edu
Jonathan Rose is William R. Kenan Professor of History at Drew University in New Jersey. He edits the journal Book History and was founding president of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing. He is the author of several books including The Literary Churchill and The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes.
About Thinking Class: Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast exploring the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam, the show features serious conversations with thinkers, historians, and commentators grappling honestly with the condition of our civilisation.
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