With Amusement for All

With Amusement for All
Author :
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages : 686
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780813171326
ISBN-13 : 0813171326
Rating : 4/5 (26 Downloads)

Book Synopsis With Amusement for All by : LeRoy Ashby

Download or read book With Amusement for All written by LeRoy Ashby and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2006-05-12 with total page 686 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With Amusement for All is a sweeping interpretative history of American popular culture. Providing deep insights into various individuals, events, and movements, LeRoy Ashby explores the development and influence of popular culture -- from minstrel shows to hip-hop, from the penny press to pulp magazines, from the NBA to NASCAR, and much in between. By placing the evolution of popular amusement in historical context, Ashby illuminates the complex ways in which popular culture both reflects and transforms American society. He demonstrates a recurring pattern in democratic culture by showing how groups and individuals on the cultural and social periphery have profoundly altered the nature of mainstream entertainment. The mainstream has repeatedly co-opted and sanitized marginal trends in a process that continues to shift the limits of acceptability. Ashby describes how social control and notions of public morality often vie with the bold, erotic, and sensational as entrepreneurs finesse the vagaries of the market and shape public appetites. Ashby argues that popular culture is indeed a democratic art, as it entertains the masses, provides opportunities for powerless and disadvantaged individuals to succeed, and responds to changing public hopes, fears, and desires. However, it has also served to reinforce prejudices, leading to discrimination and violence. Accordingly, the study of popular culture reveals the often dubious contours of the American dream. With Amusement for All never loses sight of pop culture's primary goal: the buying and selling of fun. Ironically, although popular culture has drawn an enormous variety of amusements from grassroots origins, the biggest winners are most often sprawling corporations with little connection to a movement's original innovators.


With Amusement for All Related Books

With Amusement for All
Language: en
Pages: 686
Authors: LeRoy Ashby
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2006-05-12 - Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

With Amusement for All is a sweeping interpretative history of American popular culture. Providing deep insights into various individuals, events, and movements
With Amusement for All
Language: en
Pages: 713
Authors: LeRoy Ashby
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2006-05-12 - Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

With Amusement for All contextualizes what Americans have done for fun since 1830, showing the reciprocal nature of the relationships among social, political, e
An Introduction to Popular Culture in the US
Language: en
Pages: 289
Authors: Jenn Brandt
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2018-01-25 - Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The first introductory textbook to situate popular culture studies in the United States as an academic discipline with its own history and approach to examining
Cheap Amusements
Language: en
Pages: 257
Authors: Kathy Peiss
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 1986 - Publisher: Temple University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The dilemmas of work and leisure for women at the turn-of-the-century.
Popular Culture in American History
Language: en
Pages: 309
Authors: Jim Cullen
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-04-01 - Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The second edition of Popular Culture in American History updates the text for a contemporary readership and explores academic developments in this area of stud