The book focuses on the emergence of popular culture in the Czech lands at the turn of the 20th century. During this era, members of the lower social classes experienced an increase in economic and cultural power and thus the capacity to absorb the development of a new common culture generated by rapid industrialization and urbanization.
The modern popular culture was distinctly urban, although based on residues of folk culture. Urban newcomers were seeking a new form of common culture that was facilitated by rapid technological developments that offered them new and cheap ways for circulating cultural products - the modern mass media.