Description
Book SynopsisFifteen brilliant essays on the kind of culture created by the magic of the marketplace in 1980s America, from architecture to the yuppie ascendancy.
Trade ReviewA stinging indictment of the Reagan era for its effects on both highbrow and popular culture...The targets are many and the attacks are proudly partisan. * The Progressive *
Curious and tantalizing...a benchmark not of the present but of history. -- Daniel Bell
Amusing, caustic, and cleverly written. -- Herbert Mitgang * The New York Times *
Table of ContentsPart 1 The Culture of Triumph and the Spirit of the Times 11 Part 2 Blips, Bites and Savvy Talk 29 Part 3 Putting on the Glitz: Architecture After Postmodernism 47 Part 4 The Short Happy Life of the American Yuppie 66 Part 5 Pluggies 83 Part 6 A Culture of Paper Tigers 95 Part 7 Blackness Without Blood 109 Part 8 Civil Rights and the Reagan Court 130 Part 9 The Trials of Televangelism 142 Part 10 Vietnam Screen Wars 156 Part 11 China, Bloomie's and the Met 175 Part 12 The Literature of AIDS 201 Part 13 Fictions of Acquisition 216 Part 14 The End of the Common Reader 234 Part 15 Presidency by Ralph Lauren: Closing the Decade in Style 246
