With Amusement for All: A History of American Popular Culture since 1830

A crystal clear look into the depths of American history in the past 180 years. It would be great for high school and college students to view the U.S. through the prism of this book; it explains much of the cultural phenomena young people interact with on a daily basis, and therefore explains their world more directly than the traditional history textbooks.There are a few overlooked opportunities to further strengthen the book, but I wonder if they are due to the editor rather than the author:1. The role of black big bands is minimized, even ignored. Indeed, the evolution of African American jazz from the 1930s on is so reduced as to make it seem trivial in the history of American music and culture.2. Fast food and junk food, as pillars of pop culture, are overlooked except for a few brief mentions.3. A discussion of the automobile as the foundation for suburban life and American standards of nomadism, recreation and urban design would be valuable.4. Points 2 and 3 lead to the conclusion that the book might be equating too much of pop culture with entertainment. It needs to broaden the concept to include lifestyles at the heart of pop culture but not directly associated with media.5. Like the thin discussion of jazz, the book merely notes the Oprah Winfrey phenomenon but does not take the time to explain why it happened or its broader impact. This is odd considering how much effort the author exerts to appreciate the race issue through the many historical periods and contexts covered by the book. As I say, I wouldn't be surprised if this were the result of editorial decisions beyond the author's control.While reading this book I kept thinking: why isn't it more well known? Even with its few flaws I can see it provides a strong foundation for ongoing studies at the university level. Scholars should carry on where Ashby has left off. He has sewn the seeds and now others must continue to tend this garden of powerful and useful perspectives. In that regard I note that this book is so far unique. The closest companion is David Nasaw, "Going Out," which has a much narrower scope. I don't see how we can understand American history without carefully reading popular culture as Ashby has.

A thorough crawl through the decades in popular music, sports, stage, television, movies, radio, and literature.There are many fascinating themes that emerge in this book - particularly in how white culture takes its cues and styles from black culture. This plays out again and again as privileged (but socially disconnected) white young people don the styles, mannerisms and elements of African-Americans for rather complicated reasons.Another theme that is brought forth is the evolution of amusement as diversion FROM daily life into a merging of entertainment INTO culture. Through the decades we see the lines evaporating between politics and entertainment, journalism and tabloid sensationalism, sports and business until finally popular culture is presented as culture itself.There was, however, a surprising lack of emphasis placed on the internet. The advent of the digital culture marks a wholesale revolution in how Americans create and interact with style, music, celebrities, each other and the popular culture at large. And yet in the final chapters it was mentioned but a few times in passing.All-in-all by the end of the book, the reader will feel as though they've had a thorough grounding in the subject and to be able to look around and understand a bit better how we got here.

This book is very dense, but it's an excellent account of the American entertainment history. It covers the dark times--deception, racism--and the glorious moments of advertising and marketing as well as entertainments. The author does an excellent job of tying history and social ideology to entertainments and explaining how and why each came into being. From the penny press to Netflix, and everything around and in between, I was sucked into this. There are so many names, dates, and facts, but this really reads quite nicely and easily.I didn't give it five stars because it is a little dense and I think photographs could've benefited it. I alternate between reading the book and listening to the audio book (an excellent companion) on walks around town. I'm using this tome of American knowledge for my Master's Thesis.

There are, inevitably, some sources of popular culture not included- the drinking den, from gin palace to wine bar, for instance. But the tensions between what the upper classes think is proper culture ("you have to be THIS smart to go on this ride" still applies to the visual arts - the less there truly is to it, as most ideas expressed in art could be found in a paperback novel, the most snooty the claims made about it. It's all about shifting luxury goods ands flattering the monied that they have "taste")) and what The People really like (Fox, Murdoch help us) are exposed as constant over three centuries. I am a rock music obsessessive, and learned stuff about Elvis I never knew - what a social-sexual rebel he really was, with his Tony Curtis style eye makeup. I took this fattie on vocation, as opposed to my usual Stephen King, and read every page, and the indexes!!!)

This was my first literary foray into learning about the history of American pop culture and I was not disappointed. Ashby does a fine job of placing all the major entertainment media, figures, and events into proper historical context and, for the most part, avoids dense or verbose editorializing. My only reservation is the amount of text devoted to certain areas; however, given the ambitious scale of the subject, this is a perfect overview.

I got this book (as a joke) for my boyfriend who has ZERO knowledge of anything related to pop culture. I was hoping for more jokes and images, but the book had lots of great information. I ended up enjoying the book more than he did and he still knows nothing about pop culture. Oh whale...

Bought it for a class

Was purchased for someone else.