From his arrival in Britain in the 1950s and involvement in the New Left to founding the field
of cultural studies and examining race and identity in the 1990s and early 2000s Stuart Hall
has been central to shaping many of the cultural and political debates of our time. Essential
Essays-a landmark two-volume set-brings together Stuart Hall's most influential and
foundational works. Spanning the whole of his career these volumes reflect the breadth and
depth of his intellectual and political projects while demonstrating their continued vitality
and importance.Volume 2: Identity and Diaspora draws from Hall's later essays in which he
investigated questions of colonialism empire and race. It opens with Gramsci's Relevance for
the Study of Race and Ethnicity which frames the volume and finds Hall rethinking received
notions of racial essentialism. In addition to essays on multiculturalism and globalization
black popular culture and Western modernity's racial underpinnings Volume 2 contains three
interviews with Hall in which he reflects on his life to theorize his identity as a colonial
and diasporic subject.
