This book, first published in 1987, is a landmark contribution to macrosociology that extends the tradition of Sorokin, Durkheim, Marx, Weber and other founders of the discipline in new and exciting directions. Using their innovative content analysis methodology to examine American and British political documents, the authors show that the long-term dynamics of culture are subject to their own laws and are independent of the actions of 'great men' and other individual actors. This comprehensive volume brings together over two decades of the authors' research on culture indicators. Key findings include the identification of two long-term cultural cycles in the United States and Great Britain: one is related to party realignments, the other to long-term economic fluctuations. In addition, the authors demonstrate how culture provides the themes that political parties use to interpret economic conditions in their appeal for votes. Other results show that organizational cultures move in opposite directions from those in the culture of the larger society. The book also includes detailed discussions of both the methodology used to analyse text content and related metatheoretical issues in the study of cultural dynamics.

Excerpt from The Dynamics of Culture Change an Inquiry Into Race Relations in Africa Malinowski rarely used the word acculturation, and in one of his more recent writings he advocated the adoption of a term coined by Don Fernando Ortiz, namely, transculturation, since in this there were no implications Of one standard dominating all the phases (of culture change), but a transition in which both sides are active, each contributing its quota, each merging into a new reality of civiliza tion. 7 The phrase generally used by him was culture contact and change, and the definition which I have selected has been taken from a type'script entitled The Forces and Factors of Culture Change, writ ten for a lecture in Copenhagen in 1938. It appeared in the published abstract as follows. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Examines differences in taste between modern French classes, discusses the relationship between culture and politics, and outlines the strategies of pretension.