'This beautifully written and lucidly argued study is the most persuasive account of Bourdieu's work yet to be published. Lane illuminates much that can puzzle a foreign readership by expertly situating Bourdieu within a French context. At the same time he points to those aspects of Bourdieu's writing which are of particular relevance to contemporary debates on questions of citizenship and globalization. He gives a fascinating account of Bourdieu's astonishingly prescient analyses of the impact of the expansion of higher education, the influence of the mass media, the growth of the culture industries, and the changing nature of political and social elites, not just in France, but in the western world.' Professor Jill Forbes, Queen Mary and Westfield, University of London