"Effectively a new kind of book ... an outstanding feat of composition ... a remarkable human achievement."
–Guardian "For anybody interested in the relationship between literature and society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries this book is essential reading."
–Financial Times "An absolutely riveting piece of work."
–New Society "This is, quite simply, one of the most magnificent books I have read."
–Philip Corrigan, Media, Culture and Society "Raymond Williams has made a more persistent attempt to grasp the nature of this relation [between politics and letters] than any living British writer."
–London Review of Books "These questions elicit measured, honest and extensive responses from Williams. Literature, politics, history and society: all the tributaries of his thought are arranged, chronologically and thematically, and flow from his Welsh childhood to his mature thoughts on the landscape of British politics just before Thatcher's rise to power."
–The Australian
