Dubbed as "You Are What You Hang (or Don't)" by the New York Times, Inside Culture takes us on a tour of 160 homes in and around New York City, from affluent townhouses on Manhattan's Upper East Side and rowhouses in blue-collar Brooklyn to middle and upper-class suburbs of Long Island. The result is an unprecedented portrait of the use of cultural artifacts—fine art, photographs, religious art—in private lives. "This is a first-class addition to what we know about culture in the specific rather than the abstract."—Howard S. Becker, Contemporary Sociology "This book is well worth reading, especially in your own home."—Eugene Halton, American Journal of Sociology "David Halle's researches earned him a license amateur voyeurs would kill for. . . . Refreshing for readers outside his discipline."—Peter Campbell, London Review of Books "[This book] tells us interesting things about ourselves. . . . It affords us a birds-eye view of American culture from which we can see . . . unsuspected patterns of tastes and acquisitions."—James Gardner, Washington Times "[A] voyeuristic thrill. . . . Lucid and entertaining. . . . A fascinating book that will open the eyes of anyone who's ever glibly said about art, 'I know what I like.' After reading Inside Culture, they'll also know a little bit more about why."—Maureen Corrigan, New York Observer David Halle's idea was simple but radical: to connect culture to everyday life by showing how people actually use the artifacts of culture - paintings, photographs, sculpture - in the most intimate of all settings: the home. In the first book of its kind, Halle gives a fascinating account of the uses and meaning of art for those who buy it and live with it. His study ranges from the affluent town houses on Manhattan's Upper East Side and row houses in blue-collar Brooklyn to middle- and upper-middle class suburbs on Long Island, resulting in an unprecedented portrait of the meanings of art for its primary audience. Are there differences in artistic preferences between social classes or races or between urban and suburban homes? Similarities? How do choices in art works - and the way we display them - speak to our dreams, desires, pleasures, and fears? And what do they say about the real cultural boundaries between elite and popular, high and low? Halle examines landscapes, both priceless heirlooms and mass-produced sunsets; abstract paintings and prints; "primitive" sculpture; and the vibrantly colored portraits of religious art. He also discusses the gatherings of family photographs that fill every home. Inside Culture also explores the architecture and design of the houses, from the eclipse of the formal dining room to the landscape of urban backyards. Refusing easy generalizations about culture and class, Halle shows that art has a different set of meanings outside the rarefied air of museums and galleries. He challenges received opinion about the role of the audience in the history and reception of twentieth-century art to show that the experience of art isn't always what artistsand critics say it is. With floor plans, drawings, and dozens of photographs, this lively book can be enjoyed on many levels. It describes for the first time the way a broad cross section of people live with art. It records for the first time the astonishing variety of artistic experience. And it permanently changes our ongoing conversation about what culture contains, what it controls, and what the products called "art" really mean. David Halle  is professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and director of the summer travel program, UCLA in New York: Cities and Cultures. He is also an adjunct professor at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center and School of Professional Studies and the author of  America’s Working Man  and  Inside Culture , also published by the University of Chicago Press.