Within the Context of No Context

Trow, George W.S.

ISBN 10: 0871136740 / ISBN 13: 9780871136749

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997

About this Item

Seller Inventory # I-9780871136749

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Within the Context of No Context
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0871136740
• ISBN 13: 9780871136749
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Written originally for a special issue of The New Yorker and reissued here with a new forward by the author, Within the Context of No Context is George W. S. Trow's brilliant exposition on the state of American culture and twentieth-century life. Published to widespread acclaim, Within the Context of No Context became an immediate classic and is, to this day, a favorite work of writers and critics alike. Both a chilling commentary on the times in which it was written and an eerie premonition of the future, Trow's work locates and traces, describes and analyzes the components of change in contemporary America -- a culture increasingly determined by the shallow worlds of consumer products, daytime television, and celebrity heroes. "This elegant little book is essential reading for anyone interested in the demise, the terminal silliness, of our culture." -- John Irving, The New York Times Book Review; "In this elegant, poignant essay, written with the grace of a master stylist, George Trow articulates the accelerated impermanence of American culture with a precision that is both flaunting and devastating." -- Rudy Wurlitrer; "Within the Context of No Context is a masterpiece of the century that belongs on a shelf next to Theodore Adorno's Minima Moralia and Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle." -- Michael Tolkin; "Within the Context of No Context may appear to be a book of the mind, for it is suffused with such a keen intelligence, but it is actually a book of the heart -- passionate, brave, and stirring." -- Sue Halpern.

Review

Long-time New Yorker writer George W. S. Trow first published the long title essay of this book in 1981, and it now appears with a companion piece, "Collapsing Dominant." Taken together, the two essays are a trenchant and often scathing examination of American culture. As Trow surveys the landscape, he observes that television has created a land of "no context," which it then gleefully chronicles. The many examples he cites of things he has witnessed in the mass media are alarming not for what he has seen--for we have all seen this stuff--but for the intense, and at times lacerating, insight with which he views the passing parade of frivolity. Within the Context of No Context is a slim book that does much to explain modern American society, and the thoughts in its pages will resonate for a long time.