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Nightclub City: Politics and Amusement in Manhattan Burton W. Peretti. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.
Burton W. Peretti has Grafted an intriguing cultural history with this consideration of the effects of the leisure industry of nightclubs on the civic consciousness between World Wars. More than that though, Peretti sees in the story he presents a cultural marker for clashes between old mores and new, the intensification of the United States' cult of celebrity, fluctuating ideas about gender, ethnicity, class, and sexuality, as well as redefining the boundaries between public and private. Add to the mix his accounts of political actions both comprehensive and ad hoc, and it is apparent that Peretti is attempting a detailed socio-historical analysis.