Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession With the Hideous and the Haunting - Hardcover

Poole, W. Scott

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1602583145 ISBN 13: 9781602583146

Publisher: Baylor University Press, 2011

Synopsis

Salem witches, frontier wilderness beasts, freak show oddities, alien invasions, Freddie Krueger. From our colonial past to the present, the monster in all its various forms has been a staple of American culture. A masterful survey of our grim and often disturbing past, Monsters in America uniquely brings together history and culture studies to expose the dark obsessions that have helped create our national identity.Monsters are not just fears of the individual psyche, historian Scott Poole explains, but are concoctions of the public imagination, reactions to cultural influences, social change, and historical events. Conflicting anxieties about race, class, gender, sexuality, religious beliefs, science, and politics manifest as haunting beings among the populace. From Victorian-era mad scientists to modern-day serial killers new monsters appear as American society evolves, paralleling fluctuating challenges to the cultural status quo. Consulting newspaper accoun

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

The history of America -- one fear, one monster, at a time

About the Author:

W. Scott Poole is Professor of History at the College of Charleston. There he teaches courses on monsters, pop culture, and American history. He is the author of several books, including a biography of H.P Lovecraft, which became a Bram Stoker award finalist, and Wasteland: The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror. You can find more scary stories from him on Twitter: @monstersamerica.

About this edition

• Publisher: Baylor University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1602583145
• ISBN 13: 9781602583146
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 295