Twentieth-Century American Culture
This book provides a fresh account of the major cultural and intellectual trends of the United States in 1910s, a decade characterised by war, the flowering of modernism, the birth of Hollywood, and Progressive interpretations of culture and society. Chapters on fiction and poetry, art and photography, film and vaudeville, and music, theatre, and dance explore these developments, linking detailed commentary with focused case studies of influential texts and events. These range from Tarzan of the Apes to The Birth of a Nation, from the radical modernism of Gertrude Stein and the Provincetown Players to the earliest jazz recordings. A final chapter explores the huge impact of the First World War on cultural understandings of nationalism, citizenship, and propaganda.
Key Features
- Three case studies per chapter featuring key texts, genres, writers and artists
- Detailed chronology of 1910s American Culture
- Bibliographies for each chapter
American Culture in the 1990s focuses on the dramatic cultural transformations of the last decade of the millennium. Lodged between the fall of Communism and the outbreak of the War on Terror, the 1990s was witness to America's expanding influence across the world but also a period of anxiety and social conflict. National traumas such as the Los Angeles riots, the Oklahoma City bombing and the impeachment of President Clinton lend an apocalyptic air to the decade, but the book looks beyond this to a wider context to identify new voices emerging in the nation.This is one of the first attempts to bring together developments taking place across a range of different fields: from Microsoft to the Internet, from blank fiction to gangsta rap, from abject art to new independent cinema, and from postfeminism to posthumanism. Students of American culture and general readers will find this a lively and illuminating introduction to a complex and immensely varied decade.
Key Features
- 3 case studies per chapter featuring key texts, genres, writers and artists
- Chronology of 1990s American Culture
- Bibliographies for each chapter
- 10 black and white illustrations
The 1920s saw the United States rise to its current status as the leading world superpower, matched by an emerging cultural dominance that characterized the second half of the twentieth century. This book provides an stimulating account of the major cultural and intellectual trends of the decade that have been pivotal to its characterization as 'the jazz age'.
Currell's book places common representations of the 'roaring twenties' and the 'lost generation' into context through chapters on literature, music and performance, film and radio, and visual art and design, alongside the unprecedented rise of leisure and consumption in the 1920s.
Key Features
- *3 case studies per chapter featuring key texts, genres, writers and artists
- *Chronology of 1920s American Culture
- *Bibliographies for each chapter
- *17 black and white illustrations
The 1970s was one of the most culturally vibrant periods in American history. This book discusses the dominant cultural forms of the 1970s - fiction and poetry; television and drama; film and visual culture; popular music and style; public space and spectacle - and the decade's most influential practitioners and texts: from Toni Morrison to All in the Family, from Diane Arbus to Bruce Springsteen, from M.A.S.H. to Taxi Driver and from disco divas to Vietnam protesters. In response to those who consider the seventies the time of disco, polyester and narcissism, this book rewrites the critical engagement with one of America's most misunderstood decades.
Key Features
- Focused case studies featuring key texts and influential writers, artists, directors and musicians
- Chronology of 1970s American Culture
- Bibliographies for each chapter and a general bibliography on 1970s Culture
- 14 black-and-white illustrations
This book charts the changing complexion of American culture in one of the most culturally vibrant of twentieth-century decades. It provides a vivid account of the major cultural forms of 1960s America - music and performance; film and television; fiction and poetry; art and photography - as well as influential texts, trends and figures of the decade: from Norman Mailer to Susan Sontag; from Muhammad Ali's anti-war protests to Tom Lehrer's stand-up comedy; from Bob Dylan to Rachel Carson; and from Pop Art to photojournalism. A chapter on new social movements demonstrates that a current of conservatism runs through even the most revolutionary movements of the 1960s and the book as a whole looks to the West and especially to the South in the making of the sixties as myth and as history.
Key Features
- Focused case studies featuring key texts, genres, writers, artists and cultural trends
- Detailed chronology of 1960s American culture
- Bibliographies for each chapter
- Over 30 black and white illustrations
This book provides an insightful overview of the major cultural forms of 1930s America: literature and drama, music and radio, film and photography, art and design, and a chapter on the role of the federal government in the development of the arts. The intellectual context of 1930s American culture is a strong feature, whilst case studies of influential texts and practitioners of the decade - from War of the Worlds to The Grapes of Wrath and from Edward Hopper to the Rockefeller Centre - help to explain the cultural impulses of radicalism, nationalism and escapism that characterize the United States in the 1930s.
Key Features
- 3 case studies per chapter featuring key texts, genres, writers and artists
- Chronology of 1930s American Culture
- Bibliographies for each chapter
- 22 black and white illustrations
This book explores the major cultural forms of 1940s America - fiction and non-fiction; music and radio; film and theatre; serious and popular visual arts - and key texts, trends and figures, from Native Son to Citizen Kane, from Hiroshima to HUAC, and from Dr Seuss to Bob Hope. After discussing the dominant ideas that inform the 1940s the book culminates with a chapter on the 'culture of war'. Rather than splitting the decade at 1945, Jacqueline Foertsch argues persuasively that the 1940s should be taken as a whole, seeking out links between wartime and postwar American culture.
Key Features
- Focused case studies featuring key texts, genres, writers, artists and cultural trends
- Detailed chronology of 1940s American culture
- Bibliographies for each chapter
- 20 black and white illustrations
This book looks beyond the common label of 'Ronald Reagan's America' to chart the complex intersection of cultures in the 1980s. In doing so it provides an insightful account of the major cultural forms of 1980s America - literature and drama; film and television; music and performance; art and photography - and influential texts and trends of the decade: from White Noise to Wall Street, from Silicon Valley to MTV, and from Madonna to Cindy Sherman. A focused chapter considers the changing dynamics of American culture in an increasingly globalised marketplace.
Key Features
- Focused case studies featuring key texts, genres, writers, artists and cultural trends
- Detailed chronology of 1980s American culture
- Bibliographies for each chapter
- Twelve black and white illustrations
This book provides a stimulating account of the dominant cultural forms of 1950s America: fiction and poetry; theatre and performance; film and television; music and radio; and the visual arts. Through detailed commentary and focused case studies of influential texts and events - from Invisible Man to West Side Story, from Disneyland to the Seattle World's Fair, from Rear Window to The Americans - the book examines the way in which modernism and the cold war offer two frames of reference for understanding the trajectory of postwar culture.
The two core aims of this volume are to chart the changing complexion of American culture in the years following World War II and to provide readers with a critical investigation of 'the 1950s'. The book provides an intellectual context for approaching 1950s American culture and considers the historical impact of the decade on recent social and cultural developments.
Key Features:
- Focused case studies featuring key texts, genres, writers, artists and cultural trends
- Chronology of 1950s American Culture
- Bibliographies for each chapter
- over twenty illustrations
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