In The Post-Liberal Imagination , Bruce Baum approaches American liberalism 'in a critical spirit' by examining the relationship between popular culture and politics. The book analyzes movies, television, and popular music to rethink the liberal views of democracy, equality, racism, dissent, and animal rights in the Bush-Obama era.

"Here comes the boom! That's what happens when Bruce Baum brings political theory to popular culture. He deftly analyzes the un-utterable subtext of today's cinema, TV and more, to highlight how they participate in the death of the social, the erasure of structural causes of our current inequitable society and misguided valorization of individual ability and effort as the prime forces why class, race and gender disparities exist. Going to the movies has never been so politically edifying! The Post-Liberal Imagination: Political Scenes from the American Cultural Landscape is an important work of political scholarship." - Sanford Schram, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, Hunter College, CUNY, USA