This wide-ranging, historically informed study examines the career of the culture concept and related notions of context in comparative and international politics, tracing connections through the disciplines of anthropology and history as well as through issues in nationalism and democracy.

STEPHANIE LAWSON is Professor of International Relations at the University of East Anglia, UK. She has previously taught and researched at the University of New England and the Australian National University. She is the author or editor of six books and numerous articles and book chapters spanning the fields of comparative and international politics.

Introduction World Politics and the Cultural Turn Varieties of Contextualism Culture and the Emergence of the Human Sciences Culture/s: Conceptualization and Theorization History, Culture and the National State Conceptualizing Culture in Political Studies Contextualizing Cultural Politics Beyond Dichotomies in World Politics