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Difficult Reputations: Collective Memories of the Evil, Inept, and Controversial
Contributor(s): Fine, Gary Alan (Author)
ISBN: 0226249417     ISBN-13: 9780226249414
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
OUR PRICE:   $34.65  
Product Type: Paperback
Published: April 2001
Qty:
Annotation: We take reputations for granted. Believing in the bad and the good natures of our notorious or illustrious forebears is part of our shared national heritage. Yet we are largely ignorant of how such reputations came to be, who was instrumental in creating them, and why. Even less have we considered how villains, just as much as heroes, have helped our society define its values. Presenting essays on Fatty Arbuckle, Herman Melville, Benedict Arnold, Warren Harding, John Brown, Sinclair Lewis, Henry Ford, and Vladimir Nabokov, Gary Fine explores the complex roles in culture and history that difficult reputations play.
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | United States - General
- History | Historiography
- Social Science | Popular Culture
Dewey: 973.072
LCCN: 00057688
Physical Information: 0.63" H x 6" W x 9" (0.91 lbs) 264 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
We take reputations for granted. Believing in the bad and the good natures of our notorious or illustrious forebears is part of our shared national heritage. Yet we are largely ignorant of how such reputations came to be, who was instrumental in creating them, and why. Even less have we considered how villains, just as much as heroes, have helped our society define its values.
Presenting essays on America's most reviled traitor, its worst president, and its most controversial literary ingénue (Benedict Arnold, Warren G. Harding, and Lolita), among others, sociologist Gary Alan Fine analyzes negative, contested, and subcultural reputations. Difficult Reputations offers eight compelling historical case studies as well as a theoretical introduction situating the complex roles in culture and history that negative reputations play.

Arguing the need for understanding real conditions that lead to proposed interpretations, as well as how reputations are given meaning over time, this book marks an important contribution to the sociologies of culture and knowledge.


Contributor Bio(s): Fine, Gary Alan: - Gary Alan Fine is the James E. Johnson Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University.