From Class Struggle to the Politics of Pleasure arises from reading and teaching Gramscian work in cultural studies, education, media studies, leisure and politics over the last 20 years. It argues that Gramscian work is undoubtedly powerful and persuasive. Indeed by the 1990s one can almost say that it has become the governing orthodoxy. Harris reads the work critically and in detail, tracing arguments across time and across different specialisms, assessing them, and trying to examine how they deal with critics and with new challenging topics. He maintains that cultural studies contains many...

David Harris examines the rise of cultural studies and evaluates its strengths and weaknesses. In doing so he raises searching questions about its originality and political motivation.