College and Research Libraries


Book Reviews 

Brown, Richard D. The Strength of a 
People: The Idea of an Informed Citizenry 
in America, 1650-1870. Chapel Hill 
and London: University of North 
Carolina Pr., 1996. 252p. $29.95, alk. 
paper. (ISBN 0-8078-2261.) LC 95-
35013. 

A few years ago, Richard D. Brown, a 
professor of history at the University of 
Connecticut, produced the important 
study, Knowledge Is Power: The Diffusion 
of Information in Early America,1700-1865. 
Now he follows that work with an 
equally important book, this time on the 
history of the idea of an informed citi-
zenry in America. It is a superb intellec-
tual history of a subject that, unlike the 
principle of freedom of the press, has 
never been explored in a thoroughgoing 
and systematic way. Furthermore, as 
Brown clearly shows in his new study, 
The Strength of a People, "the more closely 
we approach the idea of an informed citi-
zenry, ... the more evident it is that the 
meaning of this idea is not fixed but fluid 
and imprecise." . 

Reflecting on the significance of 
Brown's book sparked two memories 
from this reviewer's undergraduate days. 
The first is the recollection of the words 
"The hope of democracy depends on the 
diffusion of knowledge" carved high on 
the stately exterior of the college library. 
The second is the experience of having 
read Milton's Areopagitica in an English 
course, and the professor declaring to the 
class that this classic defense of freedom 
of the press should become "a part of 
your intellectual equipment." In Brown's 
tracing of the origins of the idea of an 
informed citizenry in seventeenth-cen-
tury England, Areopagitica stands as one 
of the basic documents in the formula-
tion of the concept, born out of the tur-
moil of the period of the English Civil 
War. The thought of Milton and Locke, 

481 

the significance of the Glori-
ous Revolution, and the role 
of the English gentry all are 
discussed by Brown as back-
ground for the developing 
idea of an informed citizenry 
that was transplanted to 
Britain's American colonies, where it 
took root and flourished. In this regard, 
Brown has surprisingly little to say about 
the John Peter Zenger case in New York 
in 1735, often cited as an American land-
mark in the history of freedom of the 
press, one of the prerequisites for a well-
informed citizenry, as the significance of 
Areopagitica attests. 

It was the American Revolution, how-
ever, that stimulated the idea of an in-
formed citizenry and solidified it as a cru-
cial American one. After the Revolution 
it was nurtured and shaped by Washing-
ton, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and oth-
ers, although early American leaders dif-
fered on how the citizenry should be-
come educated and informed, and were 
ambivalent about the role of the common 
people in the new republic. At the same 
time, American religion and the cultural 
life of the new nation fostered a concern 
for inculcating virtue and morality 
among the people, and this fed the im-
pulse for an informed citizenry. The great 
expansion of democracy in the Jackso-
nian era augmented the idea even more 
through the promotion of education for 
the masses, the growth of publishing, the 
development of libraries and museums, 
and the rise of the lyceUm. and public lec-
ture movement. With the elimination of 
property ownership as a qualification for 
voting, even American workingmen of 
the pre-Civil War period began to take 
seriously the notion that they, too, would 
become well-informed citizens. Finally, 
Brown shows how the ideology of an in-
formed citizenry in America was shaken 



482 College & Research Libraries 

by challenges to the definition of citizen-
ship from women, blacks, and Native 
Americans in the mid-nineteenth century 
and beyond. All this is discussed by Brown 
in an erudite and readable narrative. 

The significance of The Strength of a 
People transcends its function as a schol-
arly history. In a thoughtful and modest 
epilogue, in which the author makes clear 
that he is stepping outside his custom-
ary role of historian, Brown reflects on 
the idea of an informed citizenry within 
the context of the troubled state of Ameri-
can democracy today. In fact, his book 
can be read as a companion piece to other 
recent volumes that focus on the prob-
lems of American democracy at the end 
of the twentieth century, including works 
such as Robert H. Wiebe's Self-Rule: A 
Cultural History of American Democracy 
(1995) and Lawrence K. Grossman's The 
Electronic Republic: Reshaping Democracy 
in the Information Age (1995). Indeed, the 
subject of Brown's book is at the heart of 
much that is central to Wiebe's and 
Grossman's concerns. How can Ameri-
can democracy be revitalized in our time 
(Wiebe), how will it be shaped by the new 
information age (Grossman), and what 
is the role of an informed citizenry in this 
brave new world? 

If the idea of an informed citizenry 
is not fixed but dynamic, how will the 
idea function in a presumably open so-
ciety geared to instantaneous access to 
information? Will the age of democra-
tized electronic information promote 
a responsible citizenry, or will it con-
tribute to a more rapid fragmentation 
of society-toward the disuniting of 
America? Will the citizenry's ease of 
electronic access and response to infor-
mation lend itself to a tyranny of the 
majority or to a stalemate of conflict-
ing minorities? Certainly if education 
is presumed to be vital to an informed 
and responsible citizenry, it would 
appear that the current lack of reform 
in American education augurs ill for 
the future. 

September 1996 

Although a brief essay on sources 
would have been helpful, Brown has 
written a thoroughly researched and · 
carefully documented book. Both the text 
and the thirty-five pages of notes reveal 
a firm grasp of early American histori-
ography, as well as an informed reading 
of pertinent primary sources. Certainly 
Brown's Strength of a People provides the 
necessary historical perspective for the 
idea of an informed citizenry in America, 
and also reinforces the need for the high-
est civic responsibility on the part of edu-
cators, librarians, archivists, and informa-
tion managers. It also points to the need 
for the cultivation of civic virtue in an 
America that is increasingly strained by 
the tensions of multiculturalism, failing 
institutions, and an apparent inability to 
reform its educational system. Brown's 
book serves as both a valuable history 
lesson and a warning for the future.-
Gerald F. Roberts, Berea College, Berea, Ken-
tucky. 

Nonacademic Writing: Social Theory 
and Technology. Eds. Ann Hill Duin 
and Craig J. Hansen. Mahwah, N.J.: 
Lawrence Erlbaum Pubs., 1996. 376p. 
$29.95, acid-free paper. (ISBN 0-8058-
1628-3.) 

Odd as it might sound, most of the writ-
ing done in academe is nonacademic, es-
pecially by those of us in service and ad-
ministrative roles. By "nonacademic," 
these editors mean writing "that gets 
something done, that matters," that will 
not appear in the scholarly or popular 
media. It means writing that is special-
ized for a technical audience (e.g., memos 
and annotations). And it means the kinds 
of writing done by workers in business 
and other real-world locations. 

Why put together a book about it? (1) 
Nonacademic writing, according to these 
editors and their twenty-three chapter 
authors (many of them graduate students 
or junior faculty), is important for shap-
ing the communication and cultural pat-
terns of our work sites. (2) It bears closer