Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society

by Raymond Williams

Book Overview

Now revised to include new words and updated essays, Keywords focuses on the sociology of language, demonstrating how the key words we use to understand our society take on new meanings and how these changes reflect the political bent and values of society.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195204697
• ISBN13: 9780195204698
• Release Date: May 1985
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 8.0" x 5.4"

Customer Reviews

An essential resource

Williams has a point of view that readers must take into account, but perhaps all lexicographers should be as overt about their assumptions as he is in this eminently readable historical glossary of the terms that shape Western thought. It's a good idea when you are writing anything to stop at some point and look up Williams' account of a few of the words that you have been using -- it's guaranteed to focus the mind.

a unique book

one of its kind; it is not a dictionary (not even a technical one); it is not a book on the etimology of words; it will hardly improve your talking skills. Rather, it is a fascinating book on the constant change of culture and how this is reflected in everyday (and not so everyday) words of the English language. You will walk away humble, overwhelmed by the richness and the violence of culture's impact on words.