Profane Culture

"Long out of print, this new edition of Paul Willis's classic study of the motor-bike boys and hippies is a must read for anyone interested in cultural outsiders, past and present."--Mitch Duneier, author of Sidewalk"Profane Culture remains a powerful emblem of both ethnographic and cultural-sociological research that continues to be cited today. It has gained even greater relevance from the passing of time--its coupled studies can now be viewed as quintessential reconstructions of mid-twentieth-century subcultures that are now long past. They did indeed capture the spirit of their age, and we can recover the sense of that spirit by rereading this book. But the principal contribution of Profane Culture is contemporary, not historical. The two studies show how ethnography can contribute to the exploration of macro-level cultural structures."--Jeffrey C. Alexander, Yale University