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Cultural Hegemony in the United States, by Lee Artz and Bren Ortega Murphy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2000. 338 pp. $69.95 cloth. ISBN: 0-8039-4502-7. $39.95 paper. ISBN: 0-8039-4503-5.
Artz and Murphy, both professors of communication, have written an ambitious and wide-- ranging book on hegemony that can be understood and appreciated on a number of different levels. First, the book can serve as a good exemplar of how a topic can be explored by a variety of academic disciplines. Thus, the authors' analysis of hegemony is interdisciplinary. Also, and quite important for the authors' purposes, the book provides a fine introduction to, and illustration of, Gramsci's work. Finally, this book represents a conscious and intentional effort to establish the link between theory and practice within the contexts of concrete lived-experience. This is not surprising given the intellectual and political influences that animate and energize the authors' analysis.
Artz and Murphy divide the book into five somewhat interconnected chapters. They begin with an introductory chapter in which they trace the historical roots of hegemony as a political/social/economic reality and also as an academic concept. This chapter also includes the introduction to Gramsci's work and a consideration of how hegemony and related issues and concepts have been developed by other theorists and within various theoretical schools. This is followed by three chapters that illustrate hegemonic processes and structures within the contexts of race, gender, and class. The final chapter provides a brief consideration of the potential for resistance and change (counterhegemony).
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