What is rock? This book offers a new and systematic approach to understanding rock by applying sociological concepts in a historical context.

With this text the study of rock music subcultures come of age, an event that has been long overdue in American sociology.'--Jonathan S. Epstein, Kent State University, U. S. Rocker

Originally published in 1993, this book opens a new and major line of interpretation, showing that Georg Simmel is the essential sociologist of the postmodern age.

Are metal communities even possible in light of the importance placed on individualism in this musical genre? These are just some of the questions that arise when the concept of “community” is used in relation to heavy metal music.

This book is an attempt to show that contemporary bureaucratic organizations are not only administrative entities but are also political structures in the sense that power, conflict, and domination are normal within them.