A collection of key works in the emerging field of cultural policy. The culture wars of the early 1990s obscured broader challenges facing America's cultural life in the next century. Artists, scholars, and policymakers from many disciplines and across the political spectrum have recognized the need to move beyond debates over government funding for the arts and humanities and toward an array of issues regarding culture's role in society.

What should be the ideology underlying federal arts funding? What innovative ways can be found to improve the financial stability of arts organizations? How can new talent be encouraged? What are the differing impacts of private, governmental, and nonprofit support for the arts? What might be learned from a better understanding of international models of cultural policy? How will policy be affected by global transformations and the challenges of cyberspace? The Politics of Culture brings together the most important recent thinking on these questions and provides a compelling agenda for the future of American cultural policy.

A volume of essays introduced and edited by the Center for Arts and Culture staff that surveys issues we will face in the next century.