Monsters in America
Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $29.99
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- $29.99
Publisher Description
Monsters arrived in 2011—and now they are back. Not only do they continue to live in our midst, but, as historian Scott Poole shows, these monsters are an important part of our past—a hideous obsession America cannot seem to escape.
Poole’s central argument in Monsters in America is that monster tales intertwine with America’s troubled history of racism, politics, class struggle, and gender inequality. The second edition of Monsters leads readers deeper into America’s tangled past to show how monsters continue to haunt contemporary American ideology.
By adding new discussions of the American West, Poole focuses intently on the Native American experience. He reveals how monster stories went west to Sand Creek and Wounded Knee, bringing the preoccupation with monsters into the twentieth century through the American Indian Movement. In his new preface and expanded conclusion, Poole’s tale connects to the present—illustrating the relationship between current social movements and their historical antecedents. This proven textbook also studies the social location of contemporary horror films, exploring, for example, how Get Out emerged from the context of the Black Lives Matter movement. Finally, in the new section "American Carnage," Poole challenges readers to assess what their own monster tales might be and how our sordid past horrors express themselves in our present cultural anxieties.
By the end of the book, Poole cautions that America’s monsters aren’t going away anytime soon. If specters of the past still haunt our present, they may yet invade our future. Monsters are here to stay.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
From 19th century sea serpents to our current obsession with vampires and zombies, history professor Poole (Satan in America) plots America's past through its fears in this intriguing though not always convincing or original sociocultural history. Poole abstains from offering a single definition of "monster," allowing various meanings to develop in historical context, as with the alleged sea beast that terrorized Gloucester, Mass., in 1817 or the shape-shifting spirit Deer Woman, described in Sallie Southweall Cotton's 1901 poem "The White Doe." Poole is best when focusing on the social impact of those considered monsters, many of the human variety such as the subjects of racial intolerance and the perception of African-Americans, particularly male, as "monstrous beasts" who had to be destroyed at any cost, often by thousand-person lynch mobs. The 20th century is dealt with as a predictable series of film genres WWII monster films, body snatchers, deranged serial killers, and a return to vampires of all shapes and sizes. But given Poole's argument that "he monster has its tentacles wrapped around the foundations of American history," his loose definition of "monster" shows its weakness: while studying fantasy monsters can illuminate real fears, they don't equate with the demonization of actual humans of certain races or classes. 24 b&w illus.
