Cultural theory: the key thinkers

This volume is intended to complement our earlier volume Key Concepts in Cultural Theory. It provides introductions to the work of a range of authors who have contributed to the development of what we now understand as cultural theory. We have selected those whom we regard as the most influential contemporary thinkers, such as Derrida, Habermas and Rorty. We have included major thinkers of the twentieth century, such as Benjamin, Foucault and Heidegger, and have complemented them with thinkers who may have fallen into some neglect, such as Arendt, Benedict and Oakeshott. In addition we have aimed to provide the reader with summaries of the work of crucial pre-twentieth-century figures, such as Aristotle, Hegel, Hume and Plato, whose ideas have served to shape much of Western thought, and thus our understanding of culture. A glossary is included in order to provide the reader with an explanation of some of the terms that recur throughout the text.