The updated 3rd edition explores the intricate relationships between technology and American society, extending its analysis into the twenty-first century. It features a new chapter that addresses recent electronic and technological advancements, providing a comprehensive overview of how these developments have shaped American history. This book serves as an essential introduction to the dynamic interplay between technological progress and societal change.
A history of America's love of cars, taking in everything from gangsters to hot rodders.
Retired Major John Tiltborough's peaceful hunting trip turns into a harrowing mission when he uncovers a child abduction and pornography ring. After rescuing three teenagers, he enlists his former military team to save countless others. Amidst the danger, John navigates a new romance with his Mossad wife, adding complexity to his mission. As he races against time to protect the children, he must also evade those who want him silenced, testing his military skills and resolve.
Society has long been fascinated with the freakish, shocking and strange. In this book Gary Cross shows how freakish elements have been embedded in modern popular culture over the course of the 20th century despite the evident disenchantment with this once widespread cultural outlet. Exploring how the spectacle of freakishness conflicted with genteel culture, he shows how the condemnation of the freak show by middle-class America led to a transformation and merging of genteel and freak culture through the cute, the camp and the creepy. Though the carnival and circus freak was marginalised by the 1960s and had largely disappeared by the 1980s, forms of freakish culture survived and today appear in reality TV, horror movies, dark comedies and the popularity of tattoos. Freak Show Legacies will focus less on the individual 'freak' as 'the other' in society, and more on the audience for the freakish and the transformation of wonder, sensibility and sensitivity that this phenomenon entailed. It will use the phenomenon of 'the freak' to understand the transformation of American popular culture across the 20th century, identify elements of 'the freak' in popular culture both past and present, and ask how it has prevailed despite its apparent unpopularity.
Gary Cross reveals how consumed nostalgia shapes how we cope with accelerating change, unpacking the cultural dynamics that turn pop tunes into oldies and childhood toys into valuable commodities. By unmasking the character of modern nostalgia, Cross helps us better understand the rituals of recall in an age of fast capitalism.