Introduction ology, media and cultural studies and linguistics. The book supports the view that men's lifestyle magazines are both representative site and mobilizing force of crucial cultural shifts in masculinity. It also subscribes to the belief that popular culture, in all its forms and instantiations, plays a key role in the constitution of modern identities. The focus on men's magazines, then, it is argued, is able to illuminate aspects of the condition of modern masculinity and recent discursive shifts associated with gender politics. At the same time, the book is committed to pursuing a thesis of a'genealogy'of masculinity in the cultural sphere and therefore positions its view of men's magazines within a broader cultural context that includes other comparative modes or arenas of representation or communication which interact with magazines in telling ways (eg, TV, sport, film and'real'men). Although the focus of the book is predominantly upon modern, British, heterosexual masculinity, it also involves discussion of men's magazines across a range of historical and cultural contexts and therefore includes contributions which address historical predecessors of modern men's magazines, Japanese and American magazines, specialist sporting magazines and gay lifestyle magazines.