"In this succinct and intelligent survey, David Vincent moves beyond his British base to present a comparative analysis of the growth of mass literacy in Europe between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries." English Historical Review "This short book is one of the most ambitious summative texts on the history of literacy in the nineteenth century. Making a clear synthesis of recent texts in the history of literacy and reading in the nineteenth century it takes its examples and comparative approaches from countries as varied as Spain, Scotland, Hungary or Russia." European Review of History "David Vincent's book is an admirably careful, lucid and perceptive synthesis, the first to integrate recent approaches which stress the interactions between the written and the oral and between groups and individuals." Peter Burke, Emmanuel College, Cambridge