Aging - General & Miscellaneous, Intellectuals - Biography

First and Last Things

Name: First and Last Things
Author: Richard Hoggart
ISBN: 9780765801463

by Richard Hoggart

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Overview

"Part meditation, part commonplace book, First and Last Things is an attempt by a writer of great distinction and strong convictions to take stock of his beliefs and values. Here, Richard Hoggart considers the big questions without shortchanging readers with easy answers. He examines problems (as he sees them) of faith; the mysterious origins of conscience; the importance of family and friends; the value of literature; the nature of memory; and the need, in old age, to find some value in existence. To these issues, and many others, the author brings a lifetime of rich experience and a mind well stocked with the best that has been written by those who have gone before." What emerges above all in this work is Richard Hoggart's love of, almost obsession with, quotations from great authors, especially, of course, Shakespeare.

About the Author, Richard Hoggart

Richard Hoggart, as professor of modern English literature at Birmingham University, founded the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. He has authored or edited over twenty-five books, including Between Two Worlds: Politics, Anti-Politics, and the Unpolitical, The Uses of Literacy , and The Tyranny of Relativism , all available from Transaction.

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Editorials

Booknews

As professor of modern English literature at Birmingham University (UK), Richard Hoggart founded the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies. In this text, originally published in 1999, Hoggart draws upon a lifetime of scholarship while examining a number of life's "big questions." Topics include, for example, the origins of conscience, the nature of memory, the relationship between capitalism and democracy, and the five senses. The volume is not indexed. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

From the Publisher

"Anecdotal, eccentric but wholly enchanting and wise.... [A] lovely book by a lovely man." —Bernard Crick, Independent "Profound, funny, modest and necessary." —Philip Oakes, Times Literary Supplement "An excellent writer.... essentially timeless." —John Gross, Sunday Telegraph "The perfect elegiac postscript... not only arresting but original." —Anthony Howard, Sunday Times