Culture And Society

by Raymond Williams

Acknowledged as a masterpiece of materialist criticism in the English language, this collection cover topics from British literary history to George Eliot and George Orwell to inquire about the complex ways economic reality shapes the imagination.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Philosophy, Cultural, Theory

363 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Raymond Henry Williams was a Welsh academic, novelist, and critic. He taught for many years and the Professor of Drama at the University of Cambridge. He was an influential figure within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the mass media and literature are a significant contribution to the Marxist critique of culture and the arts. His work laid the foundations for the field of cultural studies and the cultural materialist approach. Among his many books are Culture and Society, Culture and Materialism, Politics and Letters, Problems in Materialism and Culture, and several novels.

Reviews

[Sean Barrs · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the last decades of the eighteenth century to the final words of modernism, this book tracks societal changes through exploring five key words: industry, democracy, class, art and culture. The meanings of such things, their essence, changes as per their use and the era in which their implications were considered.

This raises many questions in the field of cultural materialism. Can we derive different meanings from literary works based upon the changes in such ideas? They are, of course, represented differently, but if their actual semantic meanings change how does this effect things? Williams explores these ideas in great detail across different literary eras, contrasting many notable writers and thinkers. This edition is a recent reprint of the original published in 1958, and the need for more work in this area shows as his timeline ends long before the contemporary space can be explored.

By the end of Williams' lengthy study he comes to his own conclusions about the development of such ideas. He begins with looking at the Romantics, the group of intellectuals that first started talking about culture to track the changes of industrialism and revolution across the age. The Romantics viewed culture as the spirit of the people; such a thing stands in contrast with the Victorian notions of what proper culture should be and the modernist notions of T.S Eliot. Williams looks at the criticism of the age, namely Shelley's famous essay A Defence of Poetry in which he referred to poets the unacknowledged legislators of the world. They are the carriers of history and culture itself. Wordsworth would also agree. Poetry became a form of art in which the writers were public figures who very much lived their works and poems. Their ideas became a large part exactly what constituted Romantic culture and society.

As such I found the chapter on the Romantics the most engaging of all, though this is because of my own literary interests. The later chapters such as one George Orwell I found considerably less interesting due to my lack of specialism in the era in which he wrote, my unfamiliarity with many of his writings and my general dislike with those that I have read. The level of investment in this book depends on the reader's breadth of reading. I would not hesitate to recommend this to academics who study all literature on a broad scale, but to those who do not read widely it will be of little interest because it is the comparison between eras that form the backbone of the study.

Moreover, Williams has an erudite scholarly voice. In spite of this, his work is still very approachable and explanatory; however, that being said, it is not a piece of writing I would attempt to read if I was unfamiliar with cultural and literary criticism. An informed reader is required to get the most out of this work, one who has studied not only lots of literary movements but the thinkers who helped shape their respective cultures and societies.

So this is a very rewarding read, though only if you have the knowledge to tackle it with.

[Justin Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

A gold-mine for quotes from authors you should have read but never will (Gissing, Carlyle, Ruskin etc etc...), Williams sums up the argument of this book in two paragraphs of his conclusion: the Romantics started talking about 'Culture' because they were looking for a way to discuss the changes of industrialism. The late romantics and fin de siecle types became either total idealists with an anti-democratic concept of culture, or socialists with a hyper-democratic concept of it; both of these attitudes lead to paradox. Modernists continue these trends, but have to deal not only with industrialism, but also with mass media, actually existing democracy and 'actually existing' socialism. Everyone keeps trying to provide a foundation for the support of/ attack on 'culture,' and nobody has yet succeeded. End.
But along the way there are all sorts of little gems which make it well worth reading, and he's very even-keeled. He can analyze Orwell, Anglo-Marxism and Coleridge with equal sympathy and skill.
Williams' prose is a great lesson in how to write - inasmuch as it's clear and coherent - and how not to write - inasmuch as his best points are buried in the middle of paragraphs analyzing long quotes from dead authors.
Finally, this is a book about the English tradition. You may notice that when you pick up the book and see that all the chapters are about English men. Of course, if you judge books by their titles, you'll be misled. But that's your fault. If you're looking for a post-colonialist analysis of British imperio-hegemony or whatever, find something else. Don't blame this book for not being what it never intended to be, anymore than you'd blame a book about the Punjabi political situation in the 1950's for not analyzing Mill's book on Bentham and Coleridge.

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you believe that well-known British authors are an adequate source for judging cultural changes everywhere (including non-Anglophone countries) than this is a great book.

[Sumirti · Rating 2 out of 5]

Much of what Raymond Williams writes here could never be applied to most of the countries in the global south (for that point, it cannot be extended even to countries in Eastern Europe or the Middle East). But, the peculiar audacity of these anglophone writers of the bygone era to make statements/theories on culture, as if it's a universal phenomenon applicable to all the societies around the world, could itself be a topic for sub-cultural exploration (also, if this is the metric with which the west has been judging and scaling the East, then it gives enough knowledge to understand the source of all our present-day maladies. Also, I am glad Edward Said existed!).

P.S: If one has to explore and study the contribution of the wives who worked hard to compile, type, read, edit, organize, structure, and finish the manuscripts of the esteemed works of scholarly men of the bygone era, one can produce a gigantic bundle of whole-some literature. Raymond Williams falls under the category of one such scholar. He writes the following in the 'Foreword' of this book:

My wife has argued the manuscript with me, line by line, to an extent which, in
certain chapters, makes her virtually the joint author.

A wife good enough to argue "line by line" that she could even be named a joint author! Impressive, indeed. But, what's her name Raymond (you cultural pioneer)? What's her name?

P.S.S: Before someone jumps ahead to say 'oh! you should not judge the past men/women/history with the present day standards'. I am not cancelling Raymond but just proposing an argument to make amends in the legendary reputation around him. In short, consider his limitations and his failings - especially the nuances, often unnoticed ones.

[Sofia · Rating 3 out of 5]

otro libro que es 75% prologo a lo q realmente quiere decir este cabrón

[Irene · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would say that Williams' strength was hindsight with respect to the Industrial Revolution and how the idea of culture developed during that time, but his weakness was foresight.

I was on board until the chapter on Marxism and culture, which essentially posited that Marxist theories of literature and culture were flimsy and left it at that. Then there was the conclusion, which was laughably outdated and even considering that contained bits I downright disagreed with.

[João De souza leite · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone who wants to well inform themselves about the nineteenth English century, be an architect, a designer, or anyone else concerned with history and culture in the British island.

[flaams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me explain the two stars, that will soon turn into 3. It isn't Raymond Williams' fault, it's my professor's. This was our main textbook in a class called "British society", the theme is really interesting. I love philosophy and this book does provide a thorough description of the evolution of British history and society throughout the past centuries, but my professor.was.the.problem.
He didn't care much if we understood the lecture or not, and it was really hard indeed to understand everything on our own...

[Mickey Dubs · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one's for all the Coleridge-heads out there.

[RoaringRatalouille · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I have only read sections of this book; namely, the introduction, the chapters on "Marxism and Culture" and George Orwell, and the conclusion. Obviously, this book presents a very comprehensive and astute study of literature through different centuries. My interest, however, was more in understanding Raymond Williams' overall project, the methods he employs, and the core arguments he advances.

The foreword cannot be skipped. Here, Williams declares the book's organizing principle: "The organizing principle of this book is the discovery that the idea of culture, and the word itself in its general modern uses, came into English thinking in the period which we commonly describe as that of the Industrial Revolution" (p. II). One of this book's core aims, then, is to analyze how we have arrived at the contemporary understanding of the word culture, an understanding that emphasizes culture as a "whole way of life" as we will learn in this book.

The introduction begins by claiming that at the end of the eighteenth century, the phase during which the Industrial Revolution gained steam in England, a select number of words first came into common English use OR acquired radically new meanings. These words are industry, democracy, class, art, and culture. Industry shifted from referring to a human attribute of skill to being a "collective word for our manufacturing and productive institutions" (p. 13). Democracy changed from a term used to describe dangerous agitators to an aspirational term around democratic representation. Class prior to the industrial revolution referred to a division or group in schools and colleges; now it denotes entire social groups based on social standings. Art, in its pattern of change, is highly similar to industry; it used to be a uman attribute, a skill, and now refers to a "special kind of truth" and artist to "a special kind of person" (p. 15). Finally, and most importantly, comes the word "culture" which had previously refered to the tending of natural growth and human training, whereas now it is a thing in itself, "a whole way of life, material, intellectual, and spiritual" (p. 16). This change of meaning did not just come about, it "is a record of a number of important and continuing reactions to these changes in our social, economic, and political life" (p. 16). What is the task of the book? "It is the relations within this general pattern of change which it will be my particular task to describe" (p. 17). Raymond Williams is very specific about what he sees in the word culture: "For what I see in the history of this word, in its structure of meanings, is a wide and general movement in thought and feeling." (p. 17). Most importantly, again, culture now means "a whole way of life" (p. 18). Williams, in this book, will seek to examine a "series of statements by individuals" (p. 18) which quite simply refers to an immense breadth of books of English literature between the 18th and 20th century. Here, he feels himself "commited to the study of actual language" (p. 18).

I won't go into detail about chapter 5, "Marxism and Culture". To put the matter briefly, Williams engages here in a critique of previous Marxist approaches to understanding cultures; ones which would see culture as s simply determined superstructure on the basis of an economic reality. He suggests that this is a somewhat simplistic view that takes the relation between base and superstructure literally, rather than analogically. Again, he proposes Marxist scholars study culture as a whole of life.

The chapter on Orwell presents an interesting analysis of the overall effect of Orwell's literary oeuvre: "The total effect of Orwell's work is an effect of paradox. He was a humane man who communicated an extreme of inhuman terror; a man committed to decency who actualized a distinctive squalor. [...]. He was a socialist, who popularized a severe and damaging criticism of the idea of socialism and its adherents. He was a believer in equality, and a critic of class, who founded his later work on a deep assumption of inherent inequality, inescapable class difference. [...]. He was a notable critic of abuse of language, who himself practised certain of its major and typical abuses. He was a fine observer of detail, and appealed as an empiricist, while at the same time committing himself to an unusual amount of plausible yet spacious generalization." (p. 277). Williams goes on to examine the key to all these paradoxes that lie at the heart of Orwell's work and his figure. Concretely, this key may be found in the "paradox of the exile" (p. 279). Orwell was somebody who has dissatisfied with a settled way of living and therefore found "virtue in a kind of improvised living, and in an assertion of independence" (p. 279). But Orwell lived not only according to the principle of exile, but also according to vagrancy, both of which are to be distinguished: "The vagrant, in literary terms, is the 'reporter', and, where the reporter is good, his work has the merits of novelty and a certain specialized kind of immediacy." (p. 280) - this is the Orwell from "Down and Out in Paris and London" and "The Road to Wigan Pier"). His principle of exile was actualized in the form of his belief in socialism (p. 281). Orwell "did not so much attach socialism which was safe in his mind, as socialists, who where there and might involve him" (p. 281). We get here at the cental paradox of the exile's life: "The exile, because of his own personal position, cannot finally believe in any social guarantee: to him, because this is the pattern of his own living, almost all association is suspect. He fears it because he does not want to be compromised. Yet he fears it also because he can see no way of confirming, socially, his own individuality; this, after all, is the psychological condition of the self-exile." (p. 281). By consequence, Orwell is also somebody who retains "the characteristic mode of consciousness" of an atomistic society (p. 282). Williams then formulates a subtle critiqu against Orwell: "In thinking, from his position, of the working class primarily as a class, he assumed to readily that observation of particular working-class people was an observation of all working-class behavior." (p. 283). This also led to his belief that the working class was indeed "helpless"...a point that Williams critiques. We see in 1984 a crystallization of these tendencies: "The only dissent comes from a rebel intellectual: the exile against the whole system" (p. 283) - isn't this Orwell's life? What a brilliant and interesting analysis of George Orwell's work.

The conclusion spells out the central points of this book, an incredibly rich chapter. Williams spells out that to understand the transformation of the word 'culture', one has to appreciate the general and major changes that occurred in our common ways of life. In that sense, the history of the notion of culture is "a record of our reactions, in thought and feeling, to the changed conditions of our common life" (p. 285). Most importantly, "its basic element is its effort at total qualitative assessment" (p. 285). I think what Williams means by this is that by 'culture', or 'our common culture', we nowadays refer to a general state of cultural affairs, including ways of thinking, the media, institutions, etc.; the concept has, thus, become a signifier for an overall way of living, a "whole way of life". What perhaps is missed a little bit here is the plurality of cultures that co-existence within any given "culture". The conclusion goes on to provide an interesting discussion of the notion of "mass and masses", a notion that Williams very astutely critiques. "Our normal public conception of an individual person, for example, is 'the man in the street'. But nobody feels himself to be only the man in the street; we all know much more about ourselves than that." (p. 289). He very acutely suggests: "There are no in fact no masses; there are only ways of seeing people as masses. In an urban industrial society there are many opportunities for such ways of seeing." (p. 289). A powerful argument. Then, he goes on to discuss the notion of "mass-communication" which again critiques for the kind of image of people that it operates from. His basic argument here is that our mode of communication depends also on purpose of our communication: "if our purpose is art, education, the giving of information or opinion, our interpretation will be in terms of the rational and interested being. If, on the other hand, our purpose is manipulation [...] the convenient formula will be that of the masses." (p. 292). A sharp critique. In the section on "Mass Observation", Williams formulates some points on education, for instance sgegsting that technical changes have been allowed to run far ahead of "the educational changes" (p. 298). He suggests that a society can indeed train its members, by means of education, in almost any direction (p. 300). A powerful critique of the notion of mass communication is posed: "The idea of the masses, and the technique of observing certain aspects of mass-behavior - selected aspects of a 'public' rather than the balance of an actual community - formed the natural ideology of those who sought to control the new system and to profit by it." (p. 300). In "Communication and Community", we learn more about Williams' concept of community. Communication, here, is not only transmission, but also reception and response (p. 301). The point he makes here is that communication is too often thought in terms of transmission only or primarily. Instead he suggets an alternative which "lies, in terms of communication, in adopting a different attitude to transmission, one which will ensure that its origins are genuinely multiple, that all the sources have access to the common channels. This is not possible until it is realized that a transmission is always an offering, and that this fact must determine its mood: it is not an attempt to dominate, but to communicate, to achieve reception and response." (p. 304). Williams further laments that today "we lack a genuinely common experience" (p. 304), arguing that "we need a common culutre [...] because we shall not survive without it" (p. 304). In "Culture and Which Way of Life", Williams problematizes the notion of "bourgeois culture". He shows later how it is not the aspiration of working-class people to become the middle class, but only to live by the same level of material standards (p. 311). Again, his central point: "Yet a culutre is not only a body of intellectual and imaginative work; it is also and essentially a whole way of life" (p. 311). The crucial distinction between bourgeois and working-class culture, here, is "between alternative ideas of the nature of social relationship" (p. 311). While "bourgeois" refers to individualism, "working-class" refers o an idea of culture that looks at development not from an individualist but from a more communitarian perspective (p. 312). What is working class culture? "It is, rather, the basic collective idea, and the institutions, manners, habits of thought, and intentions which proceed from this. Bourgeois culture, similarly, is the basic individualist idea and the institutions, manners, habits of thought, and intentions which proceed from that." (p. 313). His fundamental point: "Working class culture, in the stage through which it has been passing, is primarily social (in that it has created institutions) rather than individual (in particular intellectual or imaginative work)." (p. 313).

We now get to the final sections of the conclusion. "The development of the idea of culture has, throughout, been a criticism of what has been called the bourgeois idea of society." (p. 314). Williams here contrasts also the middle-class notion of service/servitude, which he attacks for its tendency to align with the status quo of power, with the working-class ethic of solidarity. He also critiques the "ladder" concept of society harbored by bourgeois circles (p. 317).

Finally, in "The Development of a Common Culture", he argues that solidarity might be the most central and positive basis of a socieyt (p. 318). Today, however, culture will be "a very complex organization, requiring continual adjustment and redrawing. At root, the feeling of solidarity is the only conceivable element of stabilization in so difficult an organization." (p. 318). Interestingly, "no community, no culture, can ever be fully conscious of itself, ever fully know itself. The growth of consciousness is usually uneven, individual, and tentative in nature." (p. 319). Williams is here at once at his most poetic and striking. "A culture, while it is being lived, is always in part unkown, in part unrealized. The making of a community is always an exploration, for consciousness cannot precede creation, and there is no formula for unknown experience." (p. 320). Wonderful: "We need to consider every attachment, every value, with our whole attention; for we do not know the future, we can never be certain of what may enrich it; we can only, now, listen to and consider whatever may be offered and take up what we can." (p. 320). The book's most beautiful sentence: "To tolerate only this or only that, according to some given formula, is to submit to the phantasy of having occupied the future and fenced it into fruitful or unfruitful ground. Thu, in the working-class movement, while the clenched fist is a necessary symbol, the clenching ought never to be such that the hand cannot open, and the fingers extend, to discover and give a shape to the newly forming reality." (p. 320). Goosebumps, and very true. He reminds us here, on these final pages, that "the idea of culture rests on a metaphor: the tending of natural growth. And indeed it is on growth, as a metaphor and as fact, that the ultimate emphasis must be placed." (p. 320).

What, then, is to be done? "To rid oneself of the illusion of the objective existence of 'the masses', and to move towards a mor actual and more active conception of human beings and relationships, is in fact to realize a new freedom. Where this can be experienced, the whole substance of one's thinking is transformed." (p. 321). According to Williams, we will have to unlearn "the inherent dominative mode." (p. 321). Against the dominative mode, we need a concept of culture that conceives of it both as a process of natural growth and human tending: this is a reconcialiation between and combination of romanticist individualism and authoritairan training: "We stress natural growth to indicate the whole potential energy, rather than the selected energies which the dominative mode finds it convenient to enlist. At the same time, however, we stress the social reality, the tending. Any culture, in its whole process, is a selection, an emphasis, a particular tending." (p. 322). Additionally, among Williams's core findings in this book is the realization that "our vocabulary, the language we use to inquire into and negotiate our actions, is no secondary factor, but a practical and radical element in itself." (p. 323).

This book, although I read scarcely 80 pages of it, is fascinating. Not only does Williams advance here a groundbreaking methodology for studying the transformation of the meaning of words (industry, democracy, class, art, and culture), he also puts forth a compelling diagnosis of what culture ought to be and to become. Thinking of culture as "a whole way of life", and realizing how this change in meaning has come about as a consequence of broader patterns of social change, is invaluable. Lastly, the conclusion is normatively striking and compelling in its humanist affirmation of education, complexity of culture, and its move away from notions of "masses". I will continue to return to this book.

[Jim Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished reading Culture and Society by Raymond Williams. Written between 1952-56 and first published in 1958, it is one of the foundational texts in what later came to be called “Cultural Studies”. Williams, as a writer working within the broad school of Western Marxism, eventually was to label his approach “cultural materialism “.

Williams was a prolific writer of journalism, political pamphlets, novels, literary criticism and intellectual history. It’s in the last role that he speaks in Culture and Society.

In a review of a number of keywords like industry, culture, democracy, class, art, and culture he describes the influence of the industrial revolution on their changing meaning and their impact on writers and readers between 1780 and 1950. We meet some writers many of us never heard of (eg, Mary Barton, Mrs Gaskell, Alton Locke, Felix Holt) and many you thought you knew (eg, JS Mill, Burke, Bentham, Coleridge, DH Lawrence, Orwell). One writer who should have been discussed but was not is William Godwin, which was a little disappointing.

My favourite bits included his discussion of “Marxism and “Culture “ (especially his critique of Lenin) and his lengthy Conclusion (especially his subtle and thoughtful discussion of “the idea of community “).

Overall, the book is a bit dated in relation to its discussion of communications, it is not an easy read but it is an interesting one.

[Olivia Ceballos]

Raymond Williams “Culture and Society” has been a very educational book, as well as a clarifier of the different facets of culture. The book describes the word ‘culture’ in an intellectual perspective. The word ‘culture’ came to use in the 19th century and developed its modern meaning during that time period. The definition of culture the text describes was “ Used to mean a process of human training—a culture of something. Then it came to mean a thing in itself, in four ways.” Williams believes that there are different aspects that go with culture. The first was, describing the general state in mind of human training- the idea of human perfection. Second was, the development of intelligence as a whole society. Lastly was the general arts.

The most captivating part of the book was when Williams began to talk about poets from the 19th century. Thomas Clarlyle was the most intriguing to read about in the book. He announces the idea of culture as a body of arts and learning and as a body of values superior to the ordinary progress of society meet. One may argue against the idea, but I am interested in that statement and plan to further my knowledge about it.

[Peter Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting analysis of the development of our understanding of culture through the changes in society during the course of the industrial revolution. Insightful, but perhaps slightly dated now (it was first published in 1958). In particular it feels like a book that is fundamentally 'modern', by which I mean it reflects the world before the developments in thought usually referred to as 'postmodernism'. I don't necessarily agree with the analysis of people usually considered classically postmodern (like Derrida for example) but any analysis which predates them is going to feel dated these days.

I added some further thoughts on the link between Williams' analysis and modern British politics on my blog here https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although it is now over 50 years old, this remains a great piece of cultural analysis and criticism. It is a model of cultural materialist practice, and makes Williams's case for culture and cultural analysis as social practice by doing it. Sadly, too many of us have only ever engaged with his work through introductory guides to cultural studies. We need to go back to the basic texts – and 53 years after it was written and 25 or so years after I first read it, this book oozes brilliance and reminds just how I should go about doing my cultural history. I got so much out of it second time round. The opening chapter contrasting Burke and Cobbett is exceptional, and he traces the sophistication of British cultural development as well as showing just how conservative many of Britain's key cultural thinkers were. If you haven't read it, do so; if you have, consider reading it again.

[Georgina Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a thought provoking read, although at times quite dense (very long sentences and paragraphs).
**on culture**
It's relevant to me as I work in the cultural sector, so Williams’s reflections on e.g. p.16 on the plurality of meanings of culture we have today was interesting, particularly that there is a problem with using the same word for [[personal striving / excellence]] and a sense of collective health / fittingness is a problem as it hides our need to embrace a common good

This feeds through into some interesting analysis of how can we within a democratic environment found a society that reinvests the importance of common cause from where we are now

**on how it reflects on today**
I also thought there was lots in here in his analysis of the Industrial revolution and the priority of profit over human happiness, in making machines primary over human dignity in social media companies, we create all this content to make the companies richer and feed the algorithm that sends us ever more novel ways to appeal to our vanity, but not in a way that makes us happier.

**interesting methodological approach of using word usage to trace change in collective meaning**
I also really like Williams’s methodological approach of using word etymologies, it was interesting to be his (via Arnold’s) analysis of the greek word arete / agathos / aristos and Williams equating that with culture, and tracing how the word culture changes in different thinkers writings across the period he’s looking at

**things that didn't work for me**
For me it fell down a bit more in that a lot of it was really looking at political states and industry, which may be an important part of the puzzle (how work intersects with culture) but it seems to shy away from analysing culture itself beyond thinkers statements - there was very little on theatre, museums, art, television etc, there was much more of this in Williams's Communications, there was a lot on reading books but this is not the only form of culture!
I also thought his final summary was a little naive in that it states working class culture is to be applauded for creating institutions like trade unions “primarily social rather than individual”, I don’t know if that was true in the time he was writing but I’m pretty sure it’s not now. If we look at something like The Wire we see people intrinsically motivated or selfishly motivated regardless of class. That felt a bit more realistic to me.

**Empathy**
The best content for me was some of the sections on Lawrence and thinking about human relationships as primary seeing others as neither equal or unequal but simply other and intrinsic merit in welcoming that otherness.
When I stand in the presence of a man, who is himself, and when I am truly myself, then I am only aware of a Presence, and the strange reality of Otherness...comparison enters only when one of us departs from his own integral being and enters the material mechanical world

[Jim Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a tough read for someone who was not familiar with many of the texts under examination. But the good news was that it drew my attention to a number of writers - historians, social scientists and political economists - that I would not otherwise have encountered.

I had read about Robert Owen, the pioneering British socialist, in my university studies years ago, but I can see now - through Williams’ analysis - what a radical thinker he was for the time, when the industrial revolution was less than a century old and when society was being turned upside down.

‘Culture and Society - 1780-1950’ was written in the late 1950s, around the time I was born, and is now seen as one of the classic texts of how culture, art, literature and ideas developed in England in the two centuries after the invention of the dark satanic mills immortalised by William Blake.

What I found most interesting in his discussion of some of the seminal ‘conservative’ thinkers - including Burke and Coleridge and Carlisle - was that they were actually arguing against a commercially-oriented market-driven society and championing the expression of folk culture.

Meanwhile, the ‘liberal’ thinkers, while all for an expanded franchise, were philistine and reductionist in their vision of progress, seeing everyone in purely materialistic terms.

Williams, while certainly of the left (at least in the 20th century manifestation), is nevertheless remarkably even-handed and sympathetic to those one might think as his political enemies (like TS Eliot) while casting a harsher eye on those one might see as his allies (like George Orwell).

He is able to make these subtle distinctions because he can see three distinct phases of opinion in relation to industry, democracy and art over the 170 years of his survey - from complete rejection of machine-production and the factory system to the question of social relations within that system.

The conservative Burke starts at the beginning of his cultural and literary history; the socialist Orwell comes at the end. Funnily enough, they are not that different - each championing the individual against the machine (literal, in Burke’s case) and figurative (in Orwell’s).

This is a book that deserves re-reading, which I intend to do - once I get my head around the works of those described herein.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a groundbreaking work of cultural criticism that sightsees the evolution of the concept of "culture" in the context of industrialization, political disturbance, and societal alteration. First published in 1958, this book remains an essential text for anyone interested in the intersections of literature, history, and social theory.

The author charts the historical trajectory of the term "culture" from the late 18th century to the mid-20th century, emphasizing its ever-changing meanings and its relationship with society. The book is structured around key thinkers and movements, including Edmund Burke, William Blake, John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, and Karl Marx, among others.

Every single chapter emphases on how these figures and their works contributed to debates on culture as a response to the sweeping changes brought by industrialization and modernity. Weaknesses exist too.

For starters, Williams’ academic style can be challenging for general readers. The impenetrable arguments and extensive quotations may require endurance and repeated reading to copiously grasp. Secondly, while the book is expansive in its coverage of British and European intellectual history, it largely omits perspectives from outside this context, such as colonial or non-Western viewpoints. Pluspoints are surely there.

Why else would I be reviewing it?

Firstly, by merging literary criticism with sociology and history, Williams offers a nuanced perspective that appeals to readers across disciplines.

Secondly, regardless of being written over 60 years ago, the book’s comprehensions into the commodification of culture and its prospect for social critique remain extraordinarily apposite.

Concluding words: This is an opening text that bridges the fissure between literary studies and cultural theory. Williams not only touches the intellectual history of the term "culture" but also provides a critical lens through which to assess the ongoing debates about the role of art, education, and ideology in society.

While demanding in its depth and scope, the book offers invaluable insights for anyone interested in understanding how culture shapes—and is shaped by—the larger currents of history. It is a thought-provoking but valuable read that bears to influence critical thought in the humanities.

[Doris Raines · Rating 3 out of 5]

I LIKE THIS BOOK.

[Ben · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ridiculously over-rated. It is boring to read, and Williams frequently has only a very crude grasp of the things he is discussing. I don't understand how it became a 'classic' in the field.

[Burak Yaman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bekledigimi veremeyen bir kitap oldu.

[james green · Rating 4 out of 5]

Big ray delivers the goods

[Brian Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seminal.

[brenda tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

slays

[Shane Avery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super exciting scholarship, indispensable, really, as good as it gets...


"Surely any one who professes to think that the question of art and cultivation must go before that of the knife and fork (and there are some who do propose that) does not understand what art means, or how that its roots must have a soil of a thriving and unanxious life. Yet it must be remembered that civilization has reduced the workman to such a skinny and pitiful existence, that he scarcely knows how to frame a desire for any life much better than that which he now endures perforce. It is the province of art to set the true ideal of a full and reasonable life before him, a life to which the perception and creation of beauty, the enjoyment of real pleasure that is, shall be felt to be as necessary to man as his daily bread, and that no man, and no set of men, can be deprived of this except by mere opposition, which should be re sisted to the utmost." (162) Williams quoting William Morris



“I agree with . . . Coleridge and Arnold and with Burke the common teacher of this point, that society is poor indeed if it has nothing to live by but its own immediate and contemporary experience. But the ways in which we can draw on other experience are more various than literature alone. For experience that is formally recorded we go, not only to the rich source of literature, but also to history, building, painting, music, philosophy, theology, political and social theory, the physical and natural sciences, anthropology, and indeed the whole body of learning. We go also, if we are wise, to the experience that is otherwise recorded: in institutions, manners, customs, family memories. Literature has a vital importance because it is at once a formal record of experience, and also, in every work, a point of intersection with the common language that is, in its major bearings, differently perpetuated. The recognition of culture as the body of all these activities, and of the ways in which they are perpetuated and enter into our common living, was valuable and timely. But there was always the danger that this recognition would become only an abstraction but in fact an isolation. To put upon literature, or more accurately upon criticism, the responsibility of controlling the quality of the whole range of personal and social experience, is to expose a vital case to damaging and misunderstanding. English is properly a central matter of all education, but it is not, clearly, a whole education. Similarly, formal education, however humane, is not the whole of our gaining of the social experience of past and present. . . . The difficulty about the idea of culture is that we are continually forced to extend it, until it becomes almost identical with our whole common life. When this is realized, the problems to which, since Coleridge, we have addressed ourselves are in fact transformed. (272-274)

[Caracalla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raymond Williams has been a great discovery. This book traces the intellectual history of the term 'culture' just at the time when it develops its modern meaning at the dawn of the 19th century. At that time, it is heavily implicated in debates on the moral utility of art, mass education and the possibility of 'democracy.' Industrialism is strenuously reacted against by all the participants in this discourse and lots of strange theories are developed on how industrial life is essentially inhumane. English Romanticism was in part a definition of what humanity could be in the face of this apparent moral threat. (Interestingly enough, Marx seems to be heavily influenced by these debates, notably by Ruskin who was surprisingly a conservative). In hindsight, much of this was histrionic and led to a strange, elitist mysticism that Raymond Williams makes admirably tractable to analysis. Of course, in other countries that were not industrialized as quickly as Britain, there were bourgeois, intellectual movements in favour of industrialization, notably with the Italian and Russian futurists. Later in the twentieth century, issues like mass media and mass culture are similarly reacted by critics like FR Leavis and George Orwell. Overall, a long-term elitism can be seen even in figures like George Eliot, Dickens and Orwell who are apparently socially conscious but all feel a sense of superior distance to the working class and see real danger in things like trade unions. Williams ends the account with a call to a greater sensitivity to how the electorate is educated and generally communicated with, and a call for an end to elitist efforts to fear the natural inclinations of the so-called 'mass.' Obviously postmodern cultural relativity ultimately complicated such views of culture as people like Arnold or Leavis held and much of this is now antiquated given newer developments in British democracy, but still an absolutely fascinating insight into the history of British thought.

[Erica Eller · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read other complaints that this book is just about English culture and I would add to that - mostly just men are analyzed here. Yet, at the same time, if we pick and choose the salvageable parts, we can see that such a detailed analysis about how opinions of class and cultural elitism have shaped our understanding of art in the English speaking world are heavily influenced of the thinkers mentioned in this survey and Williams provides a strikingly fresh and honest perspective of how many theorists of art have maintained limited dabblings in socialist leanings, while managing to preserve implicit elitism. Th text of course stems from a self-defined Marxist and it asks us to take Marx's critique seriously in our analysis of past aesthetes. The critique cuts deeply into the cultural pillars of English literature from the given period. In particular, I was struck with his analysis of DH Lawrence, which gave me a new found use for a man accused of such an anti-feminist perspective. Equality is negotiated in the moment, according to Williams' interpretation of Lawrence. Most of the other authors are given qualified credit, but called out for falling short. The text asks us to dig deeper into the pursuit of equality, in a way that is almost naively hypocritical in its exclusion of women thinkers like Virginia Woolf. At the same time, Williams leaves us with a useful critical toolbox to select from as we choose. I was particularly struck by the style of the work: unabashed seriousness to get to the heart of an issue (whose gaping hole keeps staring us in the face).

[Seth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unique and interesting approach to the study of culture. The book moves through an aesthetic interpretation of the use of the concept of "culture" through literature/lit. crit., and presents a variety of viewpoints on the implications of how the concept has been applied over time. Sadly, this book is also fairly limited. The source material is from one country, all male, and only briefly references that idea that similar discussions have taken place elsewhere, and in other languages. Also, the focus of the book is purely on aesthetic terms, when culture is broader than what is presented by Williams.

Regardless, it's an interesting book, and one that can be recommended for anyone who has an interest in culture as an abstract philosophical idea, and/or someone who has an interest in literature and literary criticism.

[AbeerK19 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not easily astonished but this book is so good! Williams's works have always been about his own research. This book was quite different as it was mainly about others e.g. John Stuart Mill and William Morris. Repeatedly, Raymond Williams collected some opinions about culture and society made by popular authors and contemporary at that time to build up an argument. Although this kind of works usually seem to be easy to read it took me a while to understand its content. The reason could be that there were wide range of opinions about narrow subject like the Interregnum during the Victorian period in Europe, page 161. Overall, I would confidently rate this book 5/5.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first taste of Williams' work and it didn't disappoint. The concluding chapter is compelling and remains of much relevance today. What comes before is a majestic survey of literary and philosophical contributors to the contemporary concept of culture, covering many of those figures you've heard about and perhaps should but probably haven't read. As it includes many quoted passages, reading this at least gives a taste of what you may have missed.

[Dustin Hanvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very useful study of the ways in which the term "culture" has come to be defined the past two centuries. Covers authors from Bentham, Mill, Coleridge, and Arnold to Lawrence, Orwell, Marx, and T.S. Eliot. Most importantly for my own work, he has a key chapter that defines and analyzes the six major Industrial Novels.