The Chinatown Trunk Mystery: Murder, Miscegenation, and Other Dangerous Encounters in Turn-of-the-Century New York City Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy The Chinatown Trunk Mystery: Murder, Miscegenation, and Other Dangerous Encounters in Turn-of-the-Century New York City? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on The Chinatown Trunk Mystery: Murder, Miscegenation, and Other Dangerous Encounters in Turn-of-the-Century New York City. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

The Chinatown Trunk Mystery: Murder, Miscegenation, and Other Dangerous Encounters in Turn-of-the-Century New York City ReviewGay Artists in Modern American Culture is a well-researched look at the history of an idea: that an organized group of gay males had overtaken American culture, high and low, and was using it to undermine American values at home and America's standing abroad. The book is full of insights that may surprise the uninitiated, for example, the idea that the "closet" is a mostly 60's-era creation that gay men were already out of during the 20's and 30's. The sheer number of gay men on the list of mid-20th century American artists is also astonishing - nearly every major composer and most of the playwrights, a good number of visual artists and a healthy smattering of authors, architects, and social critics. Also notable, the book exposes how views once confined to arcane psychoanalytic theory slowly entered the mainstream, both right and left, which distorted the public's previously condescending, but not vicious, views on gay men (and women, to an extent). It's a complicated, but truly new (for me) explanation of history.
Despite these strengths, the book disappoints on a few levels. One, it suffers from the defect of most social histories: to discuss general trends and other abstractions precisely requires a new and jargon-filled language. Also, to do so can require you to skip other real examples in the service of your general thesis, leading to some eye-glazing passages. I say this with the huge caveat of having only skimmed the chapter "Barber at the Met" - an entire chapter on a real example. Lastly, once the book enters the 1980's, the author is clearly not discussing his expertise and most of the ideas are rather banal and no longer focusing on artists as much as an ill-defined gay culture. That said, the book is worth checking out, especially for its many pithy quotes and its dissection of the McCarthy-era "Lavender Scare."The Chinatown Trunk Mystery: Murder, Miscegenation, and Other Dangerous Encounters in Turn-of-the-Century New York City Overview

Want to learn more information about The Chinatown Trunk Mystery: Murder, Miscegenation, and Other Dangerous Encounters in Turn-of-the-Century New York City?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Homeward Bound: American Families In The Cold War Era Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Homeward Bound: American Families In The Cold War Era? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Homeward Bound: American Families In The Cold War Era. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Homeward Bound: American Families In The Cold War Era ReviewElaine Tyler May's text "Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era", remains a classic in American Studies-and example of relevant, clear, well-written scholarship utilizing a variety of data to make a interesting and important case. This is not to say that the work has no weaknesses, but it remains in many ways an enduring, if somewhat superceded landmark in American cultural studies.
Tyler May's central thesis of the book is that the foreign policy of the "containment" of communism, summarized and popularized by Secretary John Foster Dulles, paralleled the rise of a domestic politics of containment, where the home space became a way to contain the economic, sexual, and social desires of both women and men. Moreover, the construction of this home space necessitated the casting of gender, sexual, and social roles in rigorous, socially compulsory terms that effectively marginalized many people from ethnic, sexual, and ideological minorities. These roles, constructed through the politics of domestic containment, were held in majority American culture to be necessary to the social survival and maintenance of capitalism in the Cold War struggle against the Soviets. Women in particular, are focused on, as the strong, independent, single role models of the 1930's gave way to increased imagery of the married, safely domesticated woman, who were under heavy societal pressure to give birth and raise children. Men too were constrained by corporate superiors, and looked to home as the one place they could exercise full influence over their wives and children. Not everyone, of course, was happy with this.
A number of surprising arguments are made and defended in this book as sub-theses to the greater point. Birth control achieved social acceptance quickly during this time, albeit "contained" in such a way as to officially promote family expansion and lower the marriage age. Fulfilled eroticism, albeit only in marriage, becomes a central point of majority discourse, to the point that women were counseled to pour more energy into their mates' fulfillment, sexual and otherwise, than the children of the household. (this is not to say those actual sexual attitudes and practices always reflected these images, as she points out on pg. 102) The Cold War demanded that the excesses of capitalism (in promoting huge differentials between rich and poor) had to be checked, lest communism breed and flourish in the nation's slums (147). Fewer African-American women went to college than white, but more of them graduated proportionately. May even shows that the so-called Baby Boom didn't start after the war, but rather in the early part of WWII, thus dispelling the common notion peace and affluence alone created the baby boom (these conditions also existed after WWI, but with no population boom.)
Another excellent aspect of this study, besides nuancing the role of the Cold War, is the inclusion and careful use of quantitative data, the Kelly Longitudinal Studies---these were surveys taken among housewives and husbands (white ones, to be sure) and they reveal a wealth of data. Rather than painting a picture of comfortable domesticity, these surveys reflect a great deal of dissatisfaction among women (and men) coping with these rigid gender roles. Women who worked in industry during the war had mixed feelings at best being relegated back to the home. Sexuality, motherhood, all of these things proved ultimately unfulfilling for many women in the surveys, causing guilt and resentment in the supposedly "placid" generation.
Tyler May leaves important parties out of her study. Black women, for example, are discussed rarely, and the labor and civil rights movements (which start in the 1950's, not the 60's) are not part of this story. Subsequent scholarship ("Not June Cleaver", "Tupperware") has demonstrated that even in this time, women created counternarratives to compulsory domesticity, that allowed many to ameliorate and contest, if not wholly counter, these discourses. But what Tyler May demonstrates is that these majority discourses of political and domestic containment maintained a definitive hegemony over the public discussions of the day, and held wide sway in the larger culture. Especially through media representations of that time period, these operative models of domestic containment and placidness tend to guide, somewhat incorrectly, popular collective memories of that time period. This fact only serves to further underscore their continued influence.
Christopher W. Chase - PhD Fellow, Michigan State Univ.Homeward Bound: American Families In The Cold War Era Overview

Want to learn more information about Homeward Bound: American Families In The Cold War Era?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Baltimore Unbound: A Strategy for Regional Renewal Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Baltimore Unbound: A Strategy for Regional Renewal? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Baltimore Unbound: A Strategy for Regional Renewal. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Baltimore Unbound: A Strategy for Regional Renewal ReviewUsing Baltimore as an example, David Rusk believes cities and suburbs can only salvage themselves if they create metropolitan regional areas that are able to accommodate growth, deconcentrate poverty, and make central cities more economically competitive. Rusk's premise is that cities must become "elastic" in order to manage growth in tandem with the greater region. It is an attempt to use both fiscal and public policy as a tool to relieve the growing racial and economic disparity between the poor cities and the affluent suburbs. In this book Rusk outlines a strategy to help metropolitan regions become elastic and once again regain their competitive advantage. Recommended.Baltimore Unbound: A Strategy for Regional Renewal OverviewIn his highly acclaimed book,Cities without Suburbs, former Albuquerque mayor David Rusk explained why regions with wealthy suburbs surrounding a poor central city face continuing economic hardship. Now, inBaltimore Unbound, he applies his ideas in an illuminating study of Baltimore's continuing economic stagnation, offering a frank assessment of its causes and possible solutions.Placing the study in the context of national urban issues, Rusk reviews similar problems and remedial efforts in other cities.Published by the Abell Foundation.

Want to learn more information about Baltimore Unbound: A Strategy for Regional Renewal?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935 ReviewIn "Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform," Robyn Muncy described a "continuity of reform activities among America's middle-class, [Protestant] women" between the Progressive era and the New Deal. Muncy explained that, by reconciling traditional female roles with professionalization, these women reformers were able to create a "female dominion" in the filed of child welfare. Interestingly, this "dominion" was dismantled after the child welfare movement achieved its far-reaching success in New Deal legislation.
Muncy presented an innovative and fair account of female participation in the Progressive movement. Unlike many historians who concluded the Progresive era with the end of the First World War, Muncy traced the activities of women reformers to the New Deal. Muncy also recognized the existence of class, ethnic, and racial tensions between reformers and the women they attempted to assist. Muncy, however, failed to cite any conflicts between the demands of the female patrons and the goals of the professional social workers. The laywomen who funded the work of the "female dominion" must have had significant influence over the acitivities of the reformers. Muncy expressed disappointment that the reformers did not open doors to other women, particularly to women who were mothers. Muncy, however, may be analyzing the social worker's Victorian ideas regarding motherhood and child-rearing from a post-World War II perspective. The "working mother" concept is a fairly recent phenomenon which, most likely, was not considered during the Progressive period. Finally, Muncy's account of the female reform movement may be too narrow. She followed the careers of a specific coterie of women while possibly ignoring female reform movements which operated outside the realm of Muncy's model of female Progressives. Otherwise, Muncy's work offered a convincing argument that continuity between the Progressive era and the New Deal existed through the "female dominion" in child welfare.Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935 OverviewIn this book, Muncy explains the continuity of white, middle-class, American female reform activity between the Progressive era and the New Deal.She argues that during the Progressive era, female reformers built an interlocking set of organizations that attempted to control child welfare policy.Within this policymaking body, female progressives professionalized their values, bureaucratized their methods, and institutionalized their reforming networks. To refer to the organizational structure embodying these processes, the book develops the original concept of a female dominion in the otherwise male empire of policymaking.At the head of this dominion stood the Children's Bureau in the federal Department of Labor. Muncy investigates the development of the dominion and its particular characteristics, such as its monopoly over child welfare and its commitment to public welfare, and shows how it was dependent on a peculiarly female professionalism.By exploring that process, this book illuminates the relationship between professionalization and reform, the origins and meaning of Progressive reform, and the role of gender in creating the American welfare state.

Want to learn more information about Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Playing with God: Religion and Modern Sport Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Playing with God: Religion and Modern Sport? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Playing with God: Religion and Modern Sport. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Playing with God: Religion and Modern Sport ReviewThe author does outstanding research on the history of sports and how it has been interwoven within the structure of religion. I read every word. As a retired minister and pastoral counselor I was astonished as to how much sports and religion are competitive yet are parallel and both are interwoven into our modern faith and belief systems. I have a son who is an Offensive Coordinator in a local high school and I give it to him for his birthday. It's a great gift. I recommended it last Christmas to a friend to give to their father who enjoys sports and has everything. I also recommended it to my attorney to give to his law partner.
A great book thank you "Billy"
Playing with God: Religion and Modern Sport Overview

Want to learn more information about Playing with God: Religion and Modern Sport?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...