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The Cultural Turn: Scene-Setting Essays on Contemporary Cultural History, by David Chaney. New York: Routledge, 1994. 250 pp. $59.95 cloth. ISBN: 0-415-10297-9. $16.95 paper ISBN: 0-415-10298-7.
British sociologist David Chaney seeks to explain "how culture has come to dominate intellectual work in the human sciences in the latter years of this century" (p. 181). Chaney's primary focus is on his native Britain, but because he locates this cultural turn more generally in historical developments in postindustrial societies, his analysis, in order to be valid, must apply to the United States as well. Yet, unless one translates "human sciences" to mean "the humanities," preoccupation with cultural analysis seems far less evident on the other side of the Atlantic. Stateside, most sociologists appear more inclined towards suspicion, discomfort, and intellectual hand-wringing over cultural studies, the "postmodern" word, and related domains of reflexive, discursive analysis than to want to engage with these. Sociology was a party to the cultural turn spearheaded by the Birmingham School in England, but one that somehow missed the boat that navigated the transatlantic crossing. Perhaps Chaney's book can serve as an envoy to help "bring sociology back in" to the cultural turn in the United States.
These essays in cultural theory explore theoretical and historical sources...