What has the death of Corporal Patrick D. Tillman of the US Army Rangers in an incident of friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004 got to do with culture? How has the study of ideology, coding, theming and representation by Cultural Studies helped us to understand Reality TV, the Internet, mobile phones, the iPod and leading brands in neat capitalism like Virgin, The Body Shop and Apple? This lively and assured book provides a concise and authoritative critical guide to Cultural Studies. It demonstrates that the field has moved through four moments?: the National/Popular, the Textual/Representational, Global/Post Essentialism and Governmentality/Policy. It illustrates the meaning of each of these moments by a discussion of representative texts and concrete examples from popular culture. As such, it achieves a novel and accessible account of the origins and development of the field. The book also shows how the readers personal experience can be systematically situated in cultural...