Dancing in the dark : a cultural history of the Great Depression / Morris Dickstein
- Bib ID:
- 4732301
- Format:
- Book
- Author:
- Dickstein, Morris
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Description:
-
- New York ; London : W. W. Norton, c2009
- xxiii, 598 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.
- ISBN:
-
- 9780393072259
- 0393072258
- Summary:
-
"Only yesterday the Great Depression seemed like a bad memory, receding into the hazy distance with little relevance to our own flush times. Economists assured us that the calamities that befell our grandparents could not happen again, yet the recent economic meltdown has once again riveted the world's attention on the 1930s. Now, in this cultural history, Morris Dickstein explores the anxiety and hope, the despair and surprising optimism of a traumatized nation. Whether analyzing the influence of film, design, literature, theater, or music, Dickstein demonstrates how the arts were then so integral to the fabric of American society." "While any lover of American literature knows Fitzgerald and Steinbeck, Dickstein also reclaims the lives of other novelists whose work offers enduring insights. Nathanael West saw Los Angeles as a vast dream dump, a Sargasso Sea of tawdry longing that exposed the pinched and disappointed lives of ordinary people, while Erskine Caldwell, his books Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre festooned with lurid covers, provided the most graphic portrayal of rural destitution in the 1930s. Dickstein also immerses us in the visions of Zora Neale Hurston and Henry Roth, only later recognized for their literary masterpieces." "Just as Dickstein radically transforms our understanding of Depression literature, he explodes the prevailing myths that 1930s musicals and movies were merely escapist. Whether describing the undertone of sadness that lurks just below the surface of Cole Porter's bubbly world or stressing the darker side of Frank Capra's wildly popular films, he shows how they delivered a catharsis of pain and an evangel of hope. Dickstein suggests that the tragic and comic worlds of Broadway and Hollywood preserved a radiance and energy that became a bastion against social suffering." "Retrieving the stories of an entire generation of performers and writers, Dancing in the Dark shows how a rich, panoramic culture both exposed and helped alleviate the national trauma. This work is a study of one of America's most remarkable artistic periods."--BOOK JACKET.
- Full contents:
-
- 1. Introduction: Depression Culture
- Pt. 1. Discovering Poverty
- 2. The Tenement and the World: Immigrant Lives
- 3. The Starvation Army
- 4. The Country and the City
- 5. Hard Times for Poets
- 6. Black Girls and Native Sons
- Pt. 2. Success and Failure
- 7. Beyond the American Dream
- 8. What Price Hollywood?
- 9. The Last Film of the 1930s; or, Nothing Fails like Success
- Pt. 3. The Culture of Elegance
- 10. Fantasy, Elegance, Mobility: The Dream Life of the 1930s
- 11. Class for the Masses: Elegance Democratized
- Pt. 4. The Search for Community
- 12. The Populist Turn: Copland and the Popular Front
- 13. Who Cares?: The World of Porgy and Bess
- 14. The People vs. Frank Capra: Populism against Itself
- 15. Shakespeare in Overalls: An American Troubadour
- 16. Gender Trouble: Exposing the Intellectuals
- 17. Conclusion: The Work of Culture in Depression America.
- Notes:
-
- Formerly CIP.
- Includes bibliographical references (p.[556]-568) and index.
- Subject:
-
- Popular culture -- United States -- History -- 20th century
- Depressions -- 1929 -- United States
- United States -- Civilization -- 1918-1945
- United States -- Intellectual life -- 20th century
- United States -- Social life and customs -- 1918-1945
- United States -- History -- 1933-1945
- United States -- History -- 1919-1933
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
You may copy under some circumstances, for example you may copy a portion for research or study. Order a copy through Copies Direct to the extent allowed under fair dealing. Contact us for further information about copying.
Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary Dramatic Musical
- Published status:
- Published
- Publication date:
- 2009
Copyright status may not be correct if data in the record is incomplete or inaccurate. Other access conditions may also apply. For more information please see: Copyright in library collections.
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