Literacy in America

Literacy in America shows that literacy has been used as a means of social control with authority figures dictating which reading material is acceptable and which is not. Literacy has also operated as a vehicle of citizenship for Americans and as a symbol of democracy. With its ambitious scope, the book is a seminal guide to literacy in America.

Lawrence R. Samuel is a Miami-based independent scholar who holds a Ph.D. in American Studies and an MA in English from the University of Minnesota, an MBA in Marketing from the University of Georgia, and was a Smithsonian Institution Fellow. Larry blogs for Psychologytoday.com, where he has received over a million hits, and is often quoted in the media.