An accessible and readable introduction to Bourdieu's work, this book places him in intellectual and historical context, and shows how Bourdieu is best understood as a cultural analyst. It traces his development from his early work on education to his relationship to cultural sociology and cultural studies. The book also gives detailed examples, drawn from Bourdieu's own work, to show how he makes sense of contemporary culture.

Robbins guides the reader authoritatively through Bourdieu's wide-ranging body of theoretical and analytical work and offers a framework within which the most recent aspects of that work can be understood.

Derek Robbins is Emeritus Professor of International Social Theory at the University of East London

PART ONE: THE CAREER
An Insider/Outside Frenchman
PART TWO: THE CONCEPTS
The Socio-Genesis of the Thinking Instruments
Production, Reception and Reproduction
PART THREE: THE CASE STUDIES
Flaubert and the Social Ambivalence of Literary Invention
Courr[gr]eges, the Fashion System and Anti-Semiology
Manet, the Mus[ac]ee d¿Orsay and the Installation of Art
PART FOUR: THE CRITICISMS
Evaluating Fragmented Responses
Meta-Criticism
Charting Interminable Territory
Conclusion
Commending the Bourdieu Paradigm: The Sociologist as Conceptual Artist