This book makes a break with earlier interpretations of Bakhtin’s work. Using recent Russian scholarship, it explodes many of the myths which have surrounded Bakhtin and his work, and lays the ground for a new, more historically acute sense of his achievement. Through a comprehensive reading of Bakhtin’s work, the book demonstrates that his discussion of the philosophy of language, literary history, popular festive culture, and the phenomenology of everyday life revolved around a lifelong search for a new kind of modern ethical culture. A detailed examination of the major works reveals the careful interweaving of philosophical and historical argument which makes Bakhtin at once so compelling and so frustrating a writer. The book treats Bakhtin not as a metaphysician or a philosopher for the ages, but as a writer inevitably drawn into the historical conflicts produced by a modernizing and democratizing Europe. As a consequence, Bakhtin becomes a more sober but also more original writer, with a striking contribution to make to the definition of the democratic project.