New and Fully Updated Edition

In the modern world, ideology has never before been so much in evidence as a fact and so little understood as a concept. For some, the term ideology carries dubious epistemological implications, and so must be abandoned. 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.

Ideology provides lucid accounts of the thought of major Marxist thinkers, and examines the thought of non-Marxist theorists such as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud and the poststructuralists. As well as clarifying a confused topic, this new work by a major critic and theorist constitutes a political intervention into current theoretical debates. It is essential reading for students and teachers of literature and politics.

“... second to none among cultural critics writing in the English language today.” — Guardian

“... a combative, fiercely articulate and witty Marxist literary critic.” — The Nation

“Eagleton is informative, witty and wise.” — Times Higher Education Supplement

Terry Eagleton is Professor of Cultural Theory and John Rylands Fellow, University of Manchester. His other publications include Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontës (1975), Marxism and Literary Criticism (1976), Walter Benjamin (1981), The Rape of Clarissa (1982), Against the Grain (1986), William Shakespeare (1986), The Significance of Theory (1989), The Ideology of the Aesthetic (1990), The Crisis of Contemporary Culture (1993), Heathcliff and the Great Hunger (1995), Literary Theory (2nd ed. 1996), The Function of Criticism, The Illusions of Postmodernism (1997), Marx (1997), Figures of Dissent, and, co-edited with Drew Milne Marxist Literary Theory: A Reader (1996). He is also the author of plays, including Saint Oscar and Other Plays (1997) and of the filmscript Wittgenstein 1993) and the novel Saints and Scholars (1987).