This book explores sociological debates in relation to culture, taste and value. It examines the tensions between formal and substantive rationality; between courses of action which are instrumentally rational and those which are formulated withparticular cultural values in mind; between impersonal forces and creative impulses; between the logic of profit and the ambiguity of aesthetics; between a tendency to like what we are trained to like and affective or contrarian impulses. Simon Stewartargues that sociology can contribute to debates about aesthetic value and to an understanding of how people evaluate and seeks to contribute to alternative approaches that draw attention to other values and to other ways of valuing.