ABSTRACT
Since this general survey was first published thirty years ago, in 1978, a good deal has happened both in the academic world and in the wider world beyond it. The history of popular culture has been the theme of many academic conferences. Many more studies of the topic have appeared in print, particularly in the 1980s and the early 1990s. Not only monographs but substantial collections of articles have been devoted to the history of popular culture in France, Britain, Germany and Poland as well as in Europe as a whole.1
