Counterfire Against the Tyranny of the Market

Pierre Bourdieu is one of the world's leading sociologists. In recent years, however, Bourdieu has turned his attention to more immediately political issues, such as the ongoing worldwide movement to impose neo-liberalism as the only possible economic model permitted, the systematic destruction of the institutions of the welfare state and civil society, the capitulation of social democracy and the Left generally in the face of 'globalisation,' and the complicity of the mass media in squeezing out of the public sphere any voice which, rejecting Mrs Thatcher's famous phrase, suggests that there is an alternative.

In this incisive and exciting collection of articles, Bourdieu fuses the impulses of both scholarship and of homogenisation and depoliticisation as well as the elements of resistance to them. This volume consists of texts addressed to social movement activists as well as texts delivered directly to the establishment itself, such as his analysis and denunciation of the dumbing down of the media expressed before the assembled 'masters of the world'television executives, newspaper magnates, multimedia moguls and politicians such as Henry Kissinger.

?The most convincing emodiment of the politically active intellectual sicne Sartre or Foucault.? ? The Times

Pierre Bourdieu was Professor of Sociology at the Collge de France. He is the author of numerous books including Acts of Resistance, The Weight of the World and Pascalian Meditations.