` . . . what the book does it to tell an old story in a new way — through detailed linguistic analysis.' (Planet)
'Brad y Llyfrau Gleision' (The Treachery of the Blue Books) is the widely recognized phrase used to describe the publication of the 1847 Report into the State of Education in Wales. The Report aroused much hostility in Wales on account of its unflattering picture of Welsh life and the stigmatizing of the Welsh language as a 'great evil' which obstructed intellectual and moral progress, and there is no doubt that the Report had a lasting influence on the cultural and political life of Wales.
This accessible and comprehensive study is the first full-length attempt to consider the language in which the Report was written. It examines the attitudes to Wales and the Welsh people with which the Commissioners approached their task and sets these in the contexts of contemporary political events in Wales, Welsh education and its links with language and religion, theories on the origin and relative status of languages, and the role of English in the British Empire. The book then analyses the language of the Report in detail, arguing that the Commissioners' claims of authority, objectivity and ability to discover the 'truth' about Wales are consistently subverted by the language in which they are made. In The Language of the Blue Books - The Perfect Instrument of Empire, Gwyneth Roberts offers a fascinating new perspective on a publication which had a profound effect on perceptions of Wales and of Welshness.
Gwyneth Tyson Roberts is a former senior lecturer in the Department of Cultural Studies, University of East London. She previously taught English at the British Institute in Lisbon and was a lecturer at the University of Baghdad. She is co-author of An Outline of English Literature and has recently contributed a chapter on Wales to The Expansion of England, edited by Bill Schwarz.