"Remarkable for its comprehensiveness, mapping "theory" across a wide range of disciplines and art forms. It is certainly a reference book I will want to have on my own shelves."

--David Lodge

"Excellent...an unusual instance of an academic reference book that I do belive doubles quite effectively as a textbook for students and I would recommend it unreservedly to anyone with an interest in theoretical matters, or just in the history of ideas."

--Dr. Duncan Wu, St. Catherine's College, Oxford

"An astonishing encyclopaedia of people, ideas and concepts...ideal as introductory essays on a thinker or concept that you want to get a handle on before reading futher...the book also rewards browsers with entries on unpredictable things like "dead white European males" and "false memory syndrome"...a great purchase for students of cultural studies, literature or sociology."

--www.Theory.org.uk

"Enlightening and fun: this dictionary is a treasure of easy, elegant erudition. From abjection to zeugma, Plato to Tarantino, it offers focused critical enquiry and entices readers on more whimsical tours around the ideas."

--Dr. Andrea Ashworth

"Splendidly done. It brings clarity to the world of difficult concepts and radical ideas that constitute modern and post-modern critical theory, covering the significant schools and bringing clear definitions."

--Malcolm Bradbury

Penguin Putnam Web Site, March, 2003

The most up-to-date and authoritative introduction to critical theory available, this acclaimed dictionary provides an ideal overview of the full range of theories, schools of thought, and theorists. Whether it's Arendt or Woolf, object relations or orientalism, postcolonial theory or postmodernism, readers will find incisive entries on the work of key figures, powerful summaries of the crucial debates, and clear explanations of both the links and differences between the various thinkers and schools.