The Big Tomorrow

by May, Lary

• ISBN13: 9780226511634
• ISBN10: 0226511634
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-12-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

In this daring reexamination of the connections between national politics and Hollywood movies, Lary May offers a fresh interpretation of American culture from the New Deal through the Cold Warone in which a populist, egalitarian ethos found itself eventually supplanted by a far different view of the nation. "One of the best books ever written about the movies." Tom Ryan, The Age "The most exhilarating work of revisionist film history since Pauline Kael's Citizen Kane. . . . May's take on what movies once were (energizing, as opposed to enervating), and hence can become again, is enough to get you believing in them again as one of the regenerative forces America so sorely needs."Jay Carr, Boston Globe "A startling, revisionist history of Hollywood's impact on politics and American culture. . . . A convincing and important addition to American cultural criticism."Publishers Weekly "A controversial overview of 30 years of American film history; must reading for any serious student of the subject."Choice "A provocative social history of Hollywood's influence in American life from the 1930s to the 1950s. May argues persuasively that movies in the period offered a good deal of tough criticism of economic and social conditions in U.S. society. . . . May challenges us to engage in some serious rethinking about Hollywood's impact on American society in the middle of the twentieth century."Robert Brent Toplin, American Historical Review

Author Biography

Lary May is a professor of American studies at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of Screening out the Past and editor of Recasting America.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

Prologue: Nothing Is More American

The Modern Republic Comes of Age

"My Ancestors Did Not Come Over on the Mayflower": Will Rogers and the Radicalism of Tradition

The Recreation of America: Hybrid Moviemakers and the Multicultural Republic

Utopia on Main Street: Modern Theaters and the "New" Audiences

The American Way and Its Discontent

The Birth of the White Consumer Democracy: Hollywood and the World War II Conversion Narrative

Movie Star Politics: Hollywood and the Making of Cold War Americanism

"Outside the Groove of History": Film Noir and the Birth of a Counterculture

Epilogue: Reimaging Postwar America

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Notes

Film Index

Subject Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.