Culture and Materialism (Radical Thinkers) - Softcover

Williams, Raymond

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1844670600 ISBN 13: 9781844670604

Publisher: Verso, 2006

Synopsis

Raymond Williams is a towering presence in cultural studies, most importantly as the founder of the apporach that has come to be known as “cultural materialism.” Yet Williams’s method was always open-ended and fluid, and this volume collects together his most significant work from over a twenty-year peiod in which he wrestled with the concepts of materialism and culture and their interrelationship. Aside from his more directly theoretical texts, however, case-studies of theatrical naturalism, the Bloomsbury group, advertising, science fiction, and the Welsh novel are also included as illustrations of the method at work. Finally, Williams’s identity as an active socialist, rather than simply an academic, is captured by two unambiguously political pieces on the past, present and future of Marxism.

About this title

About the Author:

Raymond Williams (1921–1988) was for many years Professor of Drama at the University of Cambridge. Among his many books are Culture and Society, Culture and Materialism, Politics and Letters, Problems in Materialism and Culture, and several novels.

Review:

“The left’s foremost cultural historian and critic ... an acute and perceptive political commentator.”—Comment

“Williams is the Western thinker who, along with Antonio Gramsci, has done most to enlarge our understanding of the political complexities of culture.”—Village Voice

About this edition

• Publisher: Verso
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1844670600
• ISBN 13: 9781844670604
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288