Description
Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.In an election year, political signs can be impossible to avoid. They're in front yards, on bumper stickers, and in some places you might never have expected. Tobias Carroll chronicles the permutations and secret histories of political signs, venturing into the story of how they came to be and illuminating how the signs around us shape us in ways we often fail to appreciate. In an era of political polarization and heated debate, what can be learned from studying how our personal space becomes the setting for both? Understanding political signs can help us understand our current political moment, and how we might transcend it.Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in
The Atlantic.
Trade ReviewA page-turner of cultural analysis and shrewd observation. * Los Angeles Review of Books *
During a moment in which Americans are besieged by an onslaught of political messaging from the sublime to the ridiculous, this slim, thoughtful volume helps make sense of what we’re seeing. Tobias Carroll has written a timely meditation on the political sign, an object that telegraphs our deeply held beliefs and exists in 'the space between poetry and prose'… You won’t look at a MAGA hat the same way again. * NPR's Book Concierge *
The artifacts he examines look more curious than their familiarity would suggest. * Inside Higher Ed *
We have long been taught to think about the
politics of signs, but less often is this applied to political signs themselves—our yard signs and bumper stickers and billboards—these strange creatures of the American electoral landscape, some proliferating and gone like dandelions, others stuck in place like barnacles, even as years of political changes leave them as decontextualized fossils. In this brisk and encompassing work, Tobias Carroll examines and makes strange these instruments of power and change and reaction, offering us a sharp and unyielding look at everything that is on the surface that we still do not see. * Mark Doten, author of Trump Sky Alpha *
Tobias Carroll has opened my eyes to the signs around me, and now I can’t stop seeing. * Alexis Coe, author of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George of Washington and Alice+Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis *
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Ubiquity of Yard Signs 2. The Sign Wars 3. The Business of Signs 4. The Pros and Cons of Being Generic 5. Political Signs in the Public Eye 6. Signs as Shorthand, Signs as Remakes 7. On Protest Signs 8. The Making of a Protest Sign 9. Sports & Signs & Sponsors 10. Signs in the Seats Interlude: The Punk Chapter 11. Knives Bats New (Political) Tats 12. HOPE and Its Discontents 13. When Art Is a Sign 14. When a Sign Is Art Conclusion
Acknowledgments & Thanks Notes Index
