Raymond Williams
1981
First published in 1976, and expanded in 1983, Keywords reveals how the meanings of 131 words – including ‘art’, ‘class’, ‘family’, ‘media’, ‘sex’ and ‘tradition’ – were formed and subsequently altered and redefined as the historical contexts in which they were used changed.
Neither a defining dictionary or glossary, Keywords is rather a brilliant investigation into how the meanings of some of the most important words in the English language have shifted over time, and the forces that brought about those shifts.