Description: This is a book about one of the great untold stories of modern cultural life: the remarkable ascendancy of prizes in literature and the arts. James F. English documents the dramatic rise of the awards industry and its complex role within what he describes as an economy of cultural prestige.
Brief description: James F. English is John Welsh Centennial Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.
Review Quotes: English's far-ranging examination of the prize phenomenon is able to provide concrete specificity--the history of individual awards, their trophies' value, their administrative costs--as well as engaging with the most abstract questions of 'cultural capital'...One of the joys of English's project is the way it merges high cultural theory...with an astounding range of newspaper, magazine and television commentary, providing in the process an analysis of the prize 'event' as much as prize outcomes.--Simone Murray "Media International Australia"