Leo Lowenthal 
Literature and Mass Culture 

This first volume of the collected writings of sociologist Leo Lowenthal contains his classic theoretical and historical writings on the relationship of art to mass culture. This book series presents Lowenthal’s contributions to a theory of the role of communication in modern society.

This volume lays out the basis for a theory of mass culture. Lowenthal demonstrates that the juxtaposition of a “low’mass culture and a “high’esoteric culture did not originate in contemporary industrial, bourgeois society but can be traced back to the Middle Ages and antiquity.

About the author

Leo Löwenthal (1900-1993) was a sociologist known for his association with the Frankfurt School. He began his career by joining the then newly-formed Institute for Social Research and becoming managing editor of its journal Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung. Soon thereafter he migrated to the United States where he held various positions, including research director for Voice of America, the Stanford Center for the Advanced Study of the Behavior Sciences, and finally settled in the department of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. His books (which were published in German and English) include Literature and Mass Culture, Prophets of Deceit, and Literature and the Image of Man.