Mass culture is a common concept, yet it is hard to grasp. So far, historians have either considered it as an object of cultural criticism or have concentrated on the rise of individual mass cultural phenomena such as cinema, leisure or the press. This volume suggests a different approach: It seeks to conceptualize mass culture as an embodiment of the intrinsic ambivalence of modernity and to scrutinize the changing perceptions of mass culture as genuine historical forces. Historians from different countries present national narratives but they also integrate their findings into a European perspective by following a shared analytical approach. Special attention is given to changing mass semantics, constructionist attitudes to the “problem” of mass culture and practical attempts at the renewal of (mass) cultural modernity.