Between about 1830 and the outbreak of the First World War, print culture, reading, and writing transformed cultural life in Western Europe in many significant ways. Book production and consumption increased dramatically, and practices such as letter- and diary-writing were widespread. This study demonstrates the importance of the nineteenth century in French cultural change and illustrates the changing priorities and concerns of l'histoire du livre since the 1970s. From the 1830s on, book production experienced an industrial revolution which led to the emergence of a mass literary culture by the close of the century. At the same time, the western world acquired mass literacy. New categories of readers became part of the reading public while western society also learned to write. Reading Culture and Writing Practices in Nineteenth-Century France examines how the concerns of historians have shifted from a search for statistical sources to more qualitative assessments of readers' responses. Martyn Lyons argues that autobiographical sources are vitally important to this investigation and he considers examples of the intimate and everyday writings of ordinary people. Featuring original and intriguing insights as well as references to material hitherto inaccessible to English readers, this study presents a form of 'history from below' with emphasis on the individual reader and writer, and his or her experiences and perceptions.

This pioneering study focuses on an area of Soviet and socialist studies until now largely neglected in the literature: social change. The author contends that while most standard analyses of communist regimes purport to be about social change, they are in fact analyzing economic and political developments rather than transformation in the class structure of society. Because economic and political factors are the least stable, Brucan argues, they are therefore the least explanatory and predictive factors if we are to understand long term trends in the evolution of socialism. Brucan instead explores the social forces at work in the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe--classes, professional groups, and so on--tracing the evolution of class and class policy from the time of the 1917 revolution through the present leadership of Gorbachev. Students of international affairs and sociology will find in Brucan's work important new insights into the likely future direction of the world's major communist societies. Beginning with a detailed historical analysis of class and class policy in the East, Brucan examines issues such as forced collectivization, the new working class, wage policy, the state take-over, and Khruschev's openings. Turning to a discussion of the relationship between social structure and the scientific-technological revolution, the author shows that communist regimes in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China have demonstrated a deliberate and systematic pattern of overvaluation of manual work and undervaluation of scientific and technical work--explaining their lack of preparation for rapid scientific and technical change. Brucan relates the historical analysis of social change to questions about whether reforms in the East can be achieved, arguing that no analysis of the East's economic and political history can be fully understood without considering social structure. In the final section, the author addresses the current period of perestroika, suggesting that Gorbachev's real challenge will be to dislodge the current social structure that was consolidated in the late 1970s. He concludes that a new class alignment in socialism has led to a crisis of the communist party itself.