In the modern world, ideology has never before been so much in evidence as a fact and so little understood as a concept. In a book designed both for newcomers to the topic and for those already familiar with the debates, Terry Eagleton unravels the many different meanings of ideology, and charts the history of the concept from the Enlightenment to postmodernism. As well as clarifying a confused topic, this new edition of a now classic work is fully updated in the light of current theoretical debates.