Writings on Media: History of the Present. Stuart Hall and Charlotte Brunsdon, eds. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2021. 352p. Paper, $28.95 (ISBN: 978-1-4780-1471-3).

Abstract

Stuart Hall (1932–2014) was a massively influential cultural theorist, and his work continues to inform much critical analysis on race, history, and media. Hall was a black Brit, emigrating early in life from Jamaica. Hall spent most of his years teaching and writing about race and nationality in Britain from the Postwar period through the early twenty-first century. Hall’s work informed—and continues to inform—much critical historical and sociological work in the United States and elsewhere. Hall was a prolific theorist. Writings on Media: A History of the Present, a new anthology of Hall’s writing, aims to do historical and biographical justice to the remarkable breadth and diversity of Hall’s work across medium and focus.