Abstract/Summary

This thesis is an interdisciplinary study that considers the career and output of Stanley Unwin (1884 – 1968), founder of the publishing firm, George Allen and Unwin (1914 – 1990). Using the archives of Allen and Unwin in the Archive of British Printing and Publishing at the University of Reading, the thesis traces his career and the selected output of five of the authors his firm published, observing in Unwin’s principles and in the arguments made in these publications the foundations for a new and more ‘holistic’ approach to critical thinking. Unwin felt that it was important to nurture cooperation among peers, to promote international and opposing voices, and to ‘maintain an open forum’ by publishing ‘both sides’ of contentious issues. These values together promote tolerance and respectful debate. The works of the chosen authors identify problems in interpersonal interactions and engagement with information among populations. By identifying in these works understanding later garnered by the social sciences (1950s onwards), the thesis proposes a framework of concepts and metacognitive practice as the basis for an approach to the study and improvement of critical thinking more appropriate to and adapted for the modern world. The thesis’s contribution to knowledge is therefore multiple: the archival work contributes to historical knowledge, and in particular, publishing and book historical knowledge. The thesis’s interdisciplinary discourse surrounding the concepts associated with the cognitive and social sciences demonstrates their ubiquity in human interactions and contributes to an understanding of both the authors’ observations and human behaviour. Finally, the proposed use of these ideas – and their application in projects over the course of the past several years – will hopefully provide new insight into ways of approaching the informational crisis humanity currently faces.