I purchased the book to prepare myself for a degree in cultural and literary studies. The book is excellent as a beginners book. The only problem is that it is too small for the range it covers. The informations are short and almost encyclopedic. The author usually connects only one person with a (cultural) period or an idea (for example Barthes with Post-structuralism or Derrida with Postmodernism). However, as I said, there is no better book for beginners.

There are parts in the book (towards the end of every chapter) that help you to understand better the ideas presented (these are called STOP and THINK, where the author of the book helps you to apply the knowledge you gained from reading about a certain theory). Also, there are, at the end of every chapter, suggested books for "further reading" with short explanations pointing (in a nutshell) the quality and shortcomings (biases etc) of each book.

At the end, I can just conclude that this book is worth buying only as a beginning point (probably that's why there is BEGINNINGS in the name of the book). If you already know something, and still look for a book to help you understand theory, get separate books for every kind of theory (e.g. get a book on post-structuralism, book on postmodernism etc.)

PS. The book itself was poorly made. It already started falling apart and I have it less than a month.