American Culture, American Tastes Social Change and the 20th Century

"The reader will find in these pages brief histories of cultural criticism, of the growth of corporate power in creating the mass culture and the near destruction of the boundaries between the middlebrow culture and the highbrow one. There are also compelling passages that trace the decline of traditional cultural authority, a decline hastened by corporate power: 'The entrepreneurial power of commerce totally crushed the recommendations of such cultural authorities as John Crosby, Jack Gould and Gilbert Seldes--prominent television critics who pleaded for diversity.' These are not exactly new points, but they are elements in a compelling and even thrilling American story: of the brilliant, beleaguered popular culture and its partial eclipse by the rise of the mass culture. Kammen tells that story topic by topic rather than time period by time period, perhaps not the right approach."Kammen, Michael is the author of 'American Culture, American Tastes Social Change and the 20th Century', published 2000 under ISBN 9780465037292 and ISBN 0465037291.