A companion to celebrity

In an age when celebrities are created after 5 min in front of a television camera or through a video going viral on the internet, most people would be forgiven for thinking that both the word and the status have lost all meaning and impact. According to the editors of this Companion, however, “the study of celebrity is one of the fastest growing areas of contemporary academic scholarship”, and the culture of celebrity “endures as a remarkable social, cultural, economic and, perhaps surprisingly, political phenomenon”. In an informative new reference guide, P. David Marshall, author of Celebrity and Power...