Table of Contents

List of illustrations; 1. Introduction Peter Burke; 2. The uses of literacy in early modern Italy Peter Burke; 3. Proverbs and social history James Obelkevich; 4. The language of quackery in England, 1660–1800 Roy Porter; 5. Verbal insults in eighteenth-century Paris David Garrioch; 6. Le langage mâle de la vertu: women and the discourse of the French Revolution Dorinda Outram; 7. Words and institutions during the French Revolution: the case of 'revolutionary' scientific and technical education Janis Langins; 8. The sociology of a text: oral culture, literacy and print in early New Zealand D. F. McKenzie; 9. The historian and the Questione della Lingua Jonathan Steinberg; Bibliographical essay; Index.

Promotional Information

This volume of essays brings together work by social historians of Britain, France and Italy.