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.