The Politics of Culture and other essays brings together Scruton's best essays from many sources, arranging them thematically. Though the essays are diverse (the books four sections are: Language and Art, Writers in Context, Architecture, and Culture and Anarchy), certain themes are developed in particular and then in general ways, and there are several important essays on writers and critics that contribute to the reappraisal of their work; among them Dante, Andre Breton, Graham Greene, James Joyce, Sylvia Plath, Jacques Lacan, and Yukio Mishima. 'The political spirit is present in all of the papers,' writes Scruton, 'but it is a spirit that concerns itself with culture, and with the institutions and practices through which culture is upheld.'
