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Publisher: Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 2007, £100, $175.
ISBN: 978 0 313 33520 4
The two-volume Great Depression in America: A Cultural Encyclopedia is different from all other works covering the Depression in American history that lasted from 1929 until the beginning of World War II. The difference is that the work does not examine the Depression from a purely political and historical viewpoint, but looks at the cultural phenomena with a particular emphasis on the impact of the mass media, radio and the movies.
The range of topics is extremely wide - and they cover the trivial to the historically important. But, of course, as we know well, it is often the trivial which can be the most interesting when we look back in history at the lives of ordinary people. I cannot recall reading another book on this period of history which covered chain letters, jigsaw puzzles, marathon dancing, and miniature golf, while, at the same time, covering the politicians and the important political events.
The work begins with an alphabetical list of entries and a thematic guide to related topics (same list in both volumes - always helpful to do this). An introductory essay follows which provides a historical and cultural overview of the period. The encyclopedia has 200 entries from which the reader can gain a sense of American life during the 1930s, from the onset of the Great Depression to the beginnings of World War Two. It is always difficult to give the flavour of a publication of this type through listing some examples of entries, but here are a few: Amos "n" Andy, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Automobiles, Bing Crosby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, George and Ira Gershwin, Jean Harlow, Roy Rogers, Frank Sinatra, Shirley Temple, Dracula, Gone With the Wind, It Happened One Night, Superman, Walt Disney, Flash Gordon, Judy Garland, the Lindbergh Kidnapping, the Marx Brothers, Miniature Golf, Pulp Magazines, Bonnie and Clyde, the Chicago's World Fair, Walt Disney, Duke Ellington,...