Representations and contradictions

The author explores the uneven distribution of representations in human societies and at different times within the same society. He shows how prone representations are to change during and after revolutions, and explains what lies behind their absence or suppression: the widespread scarcity, for example, of figurative representation, and the decline of secular literature, between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance, and the suppression of theatre during the Reformation.

Jack Goody's accessible approach to his subject will ensure that this book appeals equally to anthropologists and historians, and to all students of culture, art history and literature.