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Cultural Literacy

What Every American Needs to Know

Author E.D. Hirsch, Jr.
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Paperback
$19.00 US
Knopf | Vintage
On sale Apr 12, 1988 | 272 Pages | 9780394758435
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In this forceful manifesto, Professor Hirsch argues that children in the United States are being deprived of the basic knowledge that would enable them to function in contemporary society. They lack cultural literacy: a grasp of background information that writers and speakers assume their audience already has. Thus, even if a student has a basic competence in the English language, he or she has little chance of entering the American mainstream without knowing what a silicon chip is, or when the Civil War was fought.

"Hirsch's book does more than lament and exhort:  it tells exactly what the basics are, and why it's necessary to get back to them.''--Newsweek
E. D. Hirsch, Jr., is an emeritus professor at the University of Virginia and the author of The Knowledge Deficit, The Schools We Need, and the bestselling Cultural Literacy and the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. He and his wife, Polly, live in Charlottesville, Virginia, where they raised their three children. View titles by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.

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In this forceful manifesto, Professor Hirsch argues that children in the United States are being deprived of the basic knowledge that would enable them to function in contemporary society. They lack cultural literacy: a grasp of background information that writers and speakers assume their audience already has. Thus, even if a student has a basic competence in the English language, he or she has little chance of entering the American mainstream without knowing what a silicon chip is, or when the Civil War was fought.

"Hirsch's book does more than lament and exhort:  it tells exactly what the basics are, and why it's necessary to get back to them.''--Newsweek

Author

E. D. Hirsch, Jr., is an emeritus professor at the University of Virginia and the author of The Knowledge Deficit, The Schools We Need, and the bestselling Cultural Literacy and the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. He and his wife, Polly, live in Charlottesville, Virginia, where they raised their three children. View titles by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.

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