Culture As Politics

Culture as politics introduces the most accessible and relevant works of Christopher Caudwell, considered by many to be the most innovative British Marxist writer of the twentieth century. Caldwell had a powerful interest in how things worked - aeronautics, physics, human psychology, language, and society. In the anti-fascist struggles of the 1930s he saw that capitalism was a system that could not work properly and distorted the thinking of the age. Self-educated from the age of 15, he wrote with a directness that is alien to most cultural theory. Although already a published writer of aeronautic texts and crime fiction, he was practically unknown to the public until reviews appeared of Illusion and reality: a study of the sources of poetry. A strikingly original study of poetry's role, the book explained in clear language how the organizing of emotion in society plays a part in social change and development. Material in this collection is drawn from Illusion and reality among other texts.