Mad Men and Politics

Mad Men, using the historical backdrop of the many events that came to demarcate the 1960s, has presented a beautifully-styled rendering of this tumultuous decade, while teasing out a number of themes that resonate throughout the show and connect to the contemporary discourses that dominate today’s political landscape. The chapters of this book analyze the most important dimensions explored on the show, including issues around gender, race, prejudice, the family, generational change, the social movements of the 1960s, our understanding of America’s place in the world, and the idea of work in the post-war period.

Mad Men and Politics provides the reader with an understanding not only of the topics and issues that can be easily grasped while watching, but also contemplates our historical perspective of the 1960s as we consider it through the telescope of our current condition.

Lilly J. Goren is Professor of Political Science and Global Studies at Carroll University, USA. She is the author of You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby: Gender, Politics and Popular Culture (2010) and co-author of Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture and Presidential Politics (winner of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Susan Koppelman Award 2014).

Linda Beail is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Margaret Stevenson Center for Women’s Studies at Point Loma Nazarene University, USA. She is co-author of Framing Sarah Palin: Pit Bulls, Puritans, and Politics (2012).