Bad Taste: Ugly Truths in the Age of the Image

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This is a book about taste, or lack thereof. It is about the growing importance that we place on subjective ideas of taste in a culture that is saturated by imagery, and the sometimes damaging impact this can have on our identities, communities and politics.

Who are the tastemakers and how does their power impact our world, and everyday decisions

Nathalie Olah sets out on a journey to discover who is pulling the strings: in the high street clothing chains, behind the closed doors of political leaders, to the polished faces of TV personalities and inside high-end restaurants.

Tastemakers claim to work for you, but in fact, Olah will show how they do the very opposite. Only by freeing yourself from the tyranny of the dominant taste can you begin to make your own choices at last.

Bold, original, provocative and often laugh-out-loud funny, Bad Taste is an eye-opening tale about cultural appropriation, dominant culture and our individual place within it. Fans of John Berger, The Establishment or Naomi Klein will love this book.

Author Bio

Nathalie Olah is a journalist and cultural critic whose writing is published by the New Statesman, Guardian, TLS, Five Dials, Jacobin and Tribune. She holds a BA in English Literature from Oxford and an MA in Postcolonial Studies from the University of Sussex. In 2015, she moved to the Netherlands to work for a research organisation adjacent to the Dutch government. She credits witnessing the humiliation of the Greek people by EU bureaucrats, along with the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis in Britain, as shaping her politics and the disillusionment with neoliberal economics.