Richard Hoggart has been, perhaps, the best–known,
and certainly the most affectionately acknowledged,
British intellectual of the past sixty years. His great
classic, The Uses of Literacy , provided for thousands
of unsung working–class readers a wholly recognisable
and tender account of their own coming–to–maturity and
of the preciousness and the hardships of the life of the
poor in pre–World War II Britain. But he was far more
than narrator of a neglected class. Hoggart was also a
public figure of extraordinary energy and eminence. He
dominated the single most important Royal Commission on
broadcasting, and single–handedly he is remembered as
clinching for the defence the publication of Lady
Chatterley’s Lover , after which he became a leading
officer and defender of the international agency
protecting the culture of the very world, UNESCO. This
is the first biography of this amazing man. It seeks to
tie together in a single narrative life and work, to
settle Hoggart in the great happiness of a fulfilled
family life and in the astonishing achievements of his
public and professional career, considering each of his
books in detail, and following him through the long and
hard labours of his different public and academic
offices. Fred Inglis tells this gripping tale of a
figure of great significance to anyone who cherishes the
stuff of culture, and tells it vividly and directly. It
is a tale of a good man with which to edify the present,
and to teach us of all that now threatens our best
national (and international) forms of expression: our
art, our culture, ourselves.
|
|