In this forceful manifesto Professor E. D. Hirsch, Jr., 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.
A major bestseller that has engendered a nationwide debate on our educational standards, Cultural Literacy is must listening for parents, teachers, and anyone else concerned with our future as a literate nation.
In this essay Hirsch proposes that all Americans learn common points of reference so all may exchange ideas equitably. A list of recommended terms to know follows. Although Barrett Whitener reads this book quite respectably, the separate DICTIONARY OF CULTURAL LITERACY, which actually defines the itemized topics, probably would be a more engaging audio because listeners could affirm and expand their grasp of "what every American needs to know." Whitener gives the present work a clear, uncluttered quality, and his efforts to provide variety of tone and pace in the recitation of the phone book-like list are especially commendable. D.J. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
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