Literacy and the Politics of Representation aims to uncover the constructed nature of public understandings of literacy by examining detailed examples of how literacy is represented in a range of public contexts. 'Mary Hamilton brings to the project of refining our understanding of literacy and challenging simplistic assumptions, her own deeper analysis of policy, her experience of teaching and learning practices in adult literacy in the UK and also her study of popular ?media representations of literacy. Essential reading not only for those still bound up in the popular imagination about literacy but also for those who have been working in the field but can still benefit from such an account by? a seasoned writer capable of bringing together different fields, different theories, different 'discourses of the imagination'.' Brian Street, Emeritus Professor, King's College London, UK