The Public Culture: An Argument with the Future (New Edition)

In widely different societies, the same values are worshipped. Through its political and moral rhetoric, its music, its television, a society constructs its public culture. The state uses its control of the media to impose its values. Since the first edition of this work, the world has experienced the collapse of the Eastern European and Soviet regimes. If, in a liberal-democratic society, the economy was failing at a time of strong ethnocentric drama, can we be sure that the liberal-democratic elements in the public culture would have permeated the society sufficiently for them to survive? This is a book that analyses societies and argues with the future - if we are to continue having states, the author argues, we must find a way of taking the "nation" out of nation-state.