Ideology: Structuring Identifies in Contemporary Life

Judith E. Franchuk is a librarian in the Cameron Library at the
University of Alberta.

Bailey and Gayle examine the multi-faceted nature of ideology by
exploring its existence within a number of contexts such as race,
gender, class, public policy, history, and power. By situating ideology
within these familiar contexts, readers are provided with a number of
ports of accessibility to this challenging concept.

The first two chapters establish a foundation from which the reader can
begin to build an understanding of ideology. Beginning with the “overt
and covert power of ideology,” the authors reveal, in a very
understandable way, the role of ideology in every facet of our
individual and collective lives. The ideas of Mills, Marx, Nietzsche,
and Chomsky as well as examples from current concerns aid this
endeavour. Chapter 2 provides a number of possible frames for ideology
as well as discussion of the roles of representation and
contextualization in understanding ideology. Explanations of related
concepts such as postmodernism are extremely helpful for situating
ideology within the social scientific realm. Subsequent chapters provide
a wealth of ideas about how one might further explore ideology by
explaining how to recognize, examine, and understand the ideological
forces at work within individual identity and society.

This book is truly different from other books on ideology in that it
makes ideology an accessible concept to all readers. Bailey and Gayle
have written in understandable language and with uncomplicated, clean
grammar. It is brief yet includes all of the ingredients for a basic
understanding of ideology. In setting discussions of ideology within a
number of topics, the authors seem to have recognized that readers come
from a variety of fields and with a variety of experiences and interests
and will therefore more easily grasp the concept of ideology if it can
be analyzed within a familiar context. The glossary at the end of the
book complements the well-written text.

Ideology: Structuring Identifies in Contemporary Life will be of value
to undergraduates new to social sciences and humanities as well as to
students and other readers who have encountered ideology a number of
times but have yet to find a satisfying text on the subject.