Table of Contents

Introduction: Pledged Intelligence 1: How to Teach Reading 2: Culture and Environment 3: Origins and Destinations 4: Will Teachers Bear Scrutiny? 5: Adult Education and 'Left-Leavisism' 6: Discrimination and the Popular Arts 7: Minority Culture and the Penguin Public 8: Scrutiny's Empire Conclusion: The Project of Scrutiny Appendix: Schools and Fathers' Occupations of Downing College Undergraduates Reading English, 1932-1962 References

About the Author

Christopher Hilliard grew up in New Zealand and studied English and history at the University of Auckland. He then moved to the United States and completed a PhD at Harvard University. Since 2004 he has taught in the history department at the University of Sydney, where he is currently an associate professor. His research criss-crosses the borders between history and literature, and between social processes and intellectual life. He is the author of To Exercise Our Talents: The Democratization of Writing in Britain (Harvard University Press, 2006).

Reviews

Hilliard's book is a wonderfully painstaking analysis of Leavis's influence during his time as a teacher and writer. * John Mullan, London Review of Books *
thoroughly researched and innovative ... Christopher Hilliard's book is as much a challenge as an historical record. * Paul Dean, Use of English *
Christopher Hilliard's richly documented history of this movement, English as a Vocation, takes a fresh approach to the larger Leavisian current, one that redraws our map of it in several persuasive ways .,, English as a Vocation is by far the most reliable and the most carefully judged account of the Scrutineers' mission. * Chris Baldick, Twentieth Century British History *
This is an outstanding piece of scholarship by an historian who has, once again, found new ways of exploring British culture in the first half of the twentieth century. * Adrian Bingham, Media History *
an admirable book ... written in an attractively clear style which manages to be simultaneously measured and crisp. I have done a lot of work on this subject over the years, but, even so, in reading Hilliard I have often been impressed by the resourcefulness of his scholarship and the perceptiveness of his analysis, and I can certainly say, in all sincerity, that I have learned a great deal from this book. * Stefan Collini, Times Literary Supplement *
an outstanding contribution to twentieth-century British intellectual history ... it offers a fresh and insightful approach to intellectual history generally. * Guy Ortolano, English Historical Review *
meticulously researched and richly detailed * Alexander Howard, Australian Review of Books *