Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society

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Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society
Author Raymond Williams
Country Britain
Language English
Genre(s) Cultural studies
Publisher Croom Helm
Publication date 1976
Media type Print (book)
Pages 286
ISBN ISBN 0195204697

Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society is a book written by the Welsh Marxist academic Raymond Williams, and published in 1976 by Croom Helm.

Originally intended to be published along with the author's 1958 work Culture and Society, this work examines the history of more than a hundred words that are familiar and yet confusing: Art; Bureaucracy; Culture; Educated; Management; Masses; Nature; Originality; Radical; Society; Welfare; Work; and many others.

The approach is cultural rather than etymological. Sometimes the origins of a word cast light on its meaning, but often one finds that it originally meant something quite different. Or that there has been a fierce political struggle over the 'correct' meaning.

A revised and expanded edition of Keywords was published by Fontana in 1983. In 2005 Blackwell published New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society, an attempt to update Williams' text.