Modern Enchantments: The Cultural Power of Secular Magic

"A history of "secular," or non-supernatural, or entertainment magic as an important but neglected constituent of modern culture" (Nicholas Daly).

Magic, Simon During suggests, has helped shape modern culture. Devoted to this deceptively simple proposition, During's superlative work, written over the course of a decade, gets at the aesthetic questions at the very heart of the study of culture. How can the most ordinary arts—and by "magic," During means not the supernatural, but the speci...