American Culture in the 1930s

David Nicholas Eldridge

Language: English

Published: Aug 15, 2008

Description:

Twentieth-Century American Culture Series Editor: Martin Halliwell This series provides accessible but challenging studies of American culture in the twentieth century. Each title covers a specific decade and offers a clear overview of its dominant cultural forms and influential texts of the decade, discussing their historical impact and cultural legacy. Collectively the series reframes the notion of 'decade studies' through the prism of cultural production and rethinks the ways in which decades are usually periodised. Broad contextual approaches to the particular decade are combined with textual case studies, focusing on themes of modernity, commerce, freedom, power, resistance, community, race, class, gender, sexuality, internationalism, war, technology and popular culture. American Culture in the 1930s David Eldridge 'Vivid, wide-ranging and original, David Eldridge is a perceptive guide, conducting his readers through the maze of American culture in the 1930s. This is a book to inspire students, inform general readers and challenge scholars to generate further research.' Nicholas J. Cull, Director of the Public Diplomacy Program, University of Southern California 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 ch