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Our Musicals, Ourselves: A Social History of the American Musical Theatre by John Bush Jones Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press/ University Press of New England, 2003 427 pages, $27.95 paper
Jones in his excellent survey, examines the American musical as a subtle interchange "between social and political values" and "as theatrical vehicles that intended to transform, not just report, the tenor of the times" (1). He has some catchy chapter titles like "Patriotism, Xenophobia, and World War I," "Issue-Driven Musicals of the Turbulent Years," mainly the later 1960s, and "Fragmented Society, Fragmented Musicals" about the 1970s and 80s. He gets into analysis to include a musical point with Show Boat (1927) after he discusses the "serious issues like bigotry, spousal desertion, and alcoholism" (76). The musical point involves the grim irony of Ravenal's repetition of "Make Believe" to his daughter with altered lyrics. His philosophy of fantasizing comes possibly to blight a second generation as it has the first, a more loaded use of...