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A Spectacular Secret: Lynching in American Life and Literature. By Jacqueline Goldsby. (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 2006. x, 418 pp. Cloth, $67.00, ISBN 0-226-30137-0. Paper, $25.00, ISBN 0-226-30138-9.)
A Spectacular Secret is an impressive cultural and literary study of lynching's oppressive power at the turn of the last century. Jaqcueline Coldsby, an English professor, argues that lynching persisted in American life not simply as a primeval expression 0f southern racism, but also as a national phenomenon that operated through the "cultural logic'> of modernity. That is, lynching coincided with and was sustained through other turn-of-the-centurydevelopments, such as modern channelsof communication, corporate capitalism, and mass consumerism and production that rendered lynching into spectacle. The term "logic"-as opposed to public perceptions of irrational and atavistic mobs-refers to the systemized and institutionalized networks through...