Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall is the leading figure in cultural studies today -
no one else has had the same influence in the shaping of the field.
This book is the first full-length study of Hall's work. It
examines every aspect of his work and constitutes a major critical
introduction and appraisal of Hall's contribution.

The book guides the reader through Hall's formative experience in
Jamaica and Oxford. It examines the increasing politicization of
his thought and his identification with emancipatory, socialist
politics. In Birmingham, during his Directorship of the seminal
Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Hall created a genuinely
collaborative approach to the study of culture. In a series of
dazzling publications in the 1970s, the Birmingham Centre changed
the way in which social scientists think about culture. The book
provides a complete guide to the debates and contribution of the
Birmingham School. It explores Hall's relation with Marx, Gramsci,
Althusser and a variety of traditions in continental sociology and
philosophy.

In the 1980s Hall occupied the vanguard of criticism against
Thatcherism and Reaganism. His passionate, principled attack on the
New Right and his critique of authoritarian populism reached a
readership well beyond the confines of the academy.

His later work has moved on to the terrain of hybridity,
identity, Occidentalism, race relations. multiculturalism and the
politics of difference. All of these areas are methodically
explored in the book, making it the most complete study of Hall's
work and significance. It will be required reading by students and
lecturers in cultural studies, media studies and sociology.