ABSTRACT
The essays in this book are about how culture has come to dominate intellectual work in the human sciences in the latter years of this century, and the significance of this development. In the first two chapters I described the main themes that have formed the substance of the turn to culture. I indicated the socio-intellectual context within which these themes have been generated and suggested what seem to me to have been the greatest strengths of this paradigm shift, as well as why the same developments have sometimes ended in intellectual blind alleys. These chapters are not, then, a straightforward intellectual history but also offer a critical engagement with some of the central ideas and values that have been built into a theme of the study of culture.
