In his latest book, Patrick Brantlinger probes the state of contemporary America. Brantlinger takes aim at neoliberal economists, the Tea Party movement, gun culture, immigration, waste value, surplus people, the war on terror, technological determinism, and globalization. An invigorating return to classic cultural studies with its concern for social justice and challenges to economic orthodoxy, States of Emergency is a delightful mix of journalism, satire, and theory that addresses many of the most pressing issues of our time.

"The twelve essays in Modernity and Mass Culture provide a broad and captivating overview of what has come to be known as culture studies." Texas Journal

This is a wide-ranging analysis of the relationship among industrialization, democracy, and art in the 20th century. U.S. and British scholars discuss the interaction of "high," "popular," and "mass" art, showing how Western culture as a whole is affected by the transition from the modern to the postmodern era."

..". important and admirable... " -- VictorianStudies

..". presents a good picture of many currents ofthought that flowed through the Victorian mind, particularly those of a religiousnature." -- History

"The overall standard of theseessays is very high.... should win a deserved place upon our students' readinglists." -- ISIS

An outgrowth of a special issue of VictorianStudies, this volume has been expanded to include additional essays which broadenand enrich the collection, including essays on physics, mathematics, chemistry, economics, anthropology, and biology and how they influenced thought and literaturein Victorian Britain.

In his latest book, Patrick Brantlinger probes the state of contemporary America. Brantlinger takes aim at neoliberal economists, the Tea Party movement, gun culture, immigration, waste value, surplus people, the war on terror, technological determinism, and globalization. An invigorating return to classic cultural studies with its concern for social justice and challenges to economic orthodoxy, States of Emergency is a delightful mix of journalism, satire, and theory that addresses many of the most pressing issues of our time.

"[Brantlinger's] writing is admirably lucid, his knowledgeimpressive and his thesis a welcome reminder of the class bias that so oftenaccompanies denunciations of popular fiction." -- PublishersWeekly

"Brantlinger is adept at discussing both the fiction itselfand the social environment in which that fiction was produced and disseminated. Hebrings to his study a thorough knowledge of traditional and contemporaryscholarship, which results in an important scholarly book on Victorian fiction andits production." -- Choice

"Timely, scrupulously researched, thoroughly enlightening, and steadily readable.... A work of agenda-settinghistorical scholarship." -- Garrett Stewart

Fear of massliteracy stalks the pages of Patrick Brantlinger's latest book. Its central plotinvolves the many ways in which novels and novel reading were viewed -- especiallyby novelists themselves -- as both causes and symptoms of rotting minds and moraldecay among nineteenth-century readers.