Inventing the Public Enemy
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€33.99
A01=David E. Ruth
Author_David E. Ruth
Category=JBCC
Category=JBCT
Category=JKVM
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Product details
- ISBN 9780226732183
- Weight: 340g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 15 Apr 1996
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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In this account of mass media images, David Ruth looks at Al Capone and other "invented" gangsters of the 1920s and 1930s. The subject of innumerable newspaper and magazine articles, novels and Hollywood movies, the gangster was a compelling figure for Americans preoccupied with crime and the social turmoil it symbolized. Ruth shows that the media gangster was less a reflection of reality than a projection created from Americans' values, concerns and ideas about what would sell. We see efficient criminal executives demonstrating the multifarious uses of organization; dapper, big-spending gangsters highlighting the promises and perils of the emerging consumer society; and gunmen and molls guiding an uncertain public through the shifting terrain of modern gender roles. In this study, Ruth reveals how the public enemy provides a far-ranging critique of modern culture.
