The Uses of Culture , a collection of nine of Cameron McCarthy's most provocative essays, explores the issues of race, educational reform and cultural politics. This volume looks at the limitations of the cultural exceptionalism which underwrite current curriculum projects such as Afrocentrism, Multiculturalism and Eurocentrism.

Drawing upon a variety of literatures as well as popular culture, McCarthy contends that any single ruling identity at the core of a curriculum will be restricting. He offers as a solution a curriculum reform based on the complex, cultural linkages and associations that exist among all human groups, which acknowledge their many sources of knowledge.