American Culture in the 1940s

by Jacqueline Foertsch

Overview

This book explores the major cultural forms of 1940s America - fiction and non-fiction; music and radio; film and theatre; serious and popular visual arts - and key texts, trends and figures, from Native Son to Citizen Kane, from Hiroshima to HUAC, and from Dr Seuss to Bob Hope. After discussing the dominant ideas that inform the 1940s the book culminates with a chapter on the 'culture of war'. Rather than splitting the decade at 1945, Jacqueline Foertsch argues persuasively that the 1940s should be taken as a whole, seeking out links between wartime and postwar American culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780748624126
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	03/27/2008
Series:	Twentieth-Century American Culture
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jacqueline Foertsch is Assistant Professor of English at the University of North Texas

Table of Contents

List of Figures; List of Case Studies; Acknowledgements; Chronology of 1940s American Culture; Introduction: The Intellectual Context; 1. Fiction and Journalism; 2. Radio and Music; 3. Theatre and Film; 4. Visual Arts, Serious and Popular; 5. The Arts of Sacrifice and Consumption; Conclusion: The 1940s in the Contemporary American Imagination; Notes; Bibliography; Index.