Description
Book SynopsisLively and well written, Bread and Circuses analyzes theories that have treated mass culture as either a symptom or a cause of social decadence. Discussing many of the most influential and representative theories of mass culture, it ranges widely from Greek and Roman origins, through Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Ortega y Gasset, T. S. Eliot, and the...
Trade Review"Bread and Circuses is a joy to read. Brantlinger is learned, witty, and, best of all, inviting of conversation."-Voice Literary Supplement "Bread and Circuses is a valuable analysis of attitudes toward not only mass culture but also theories of social order, utopian (and dystopian) possibilities, and the connections between literature and politics."-Criticism "Brantlinger's substantial insights are worthy of reflection-insights, for example, on the equivocal position of religion vis-a-vis elitism and mass culture or the hitherto insufficiently noted recurrence of classicist nostalgia in essentially nonclassicist ages. The book remains useful and thought-provoking."-American Historical Review
Table of Contents1. Introduction: The Two Classicisms
2. The Classical Roots of the Mass Culture Debate
3. "The Opium of the People"
4. Some Nineteenth-Century Themes: Decadence, Masses, Empire, Gothic Revivals
5. Crowd Psychology and Freud's Model of Perpetual Decadence
6. Three Versions of Modern Classicism: Ortega, Eliot, Camus
7. The Dialectic of Enlightenment
8. Television: Spectacularity vs. McLuhanism
9. Conclusion: Toward Post-Industrial Society
