Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook800 pages11 hours
The Origins of Cool in Postwar America
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Cool. It was a new word and a new way to be, and in a single generation, it became the supreme compliment of American culture. The Origins of Cool in Postwar America uncovers the hidden history of this concept and its new set of codes that came to define a global attitude and style. As Joel Dinerstein reveals in this dynamic book, cool began as a stylish defiance of racism, a challenge to suppressed sexuality, a philosophy of individual rebellion, and a youthful search for social change.
Through eye-opening portraits of iconic figures, Dinerstein illuminates the cultural connections and artistic innovations among Lester Young, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Jack Kerouac, Albert Camus, Marlon Brando, and James Dean, among others. We eavesdrop on conversations among Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Miles Davis, and on a forgotten debate between Lorraine Hansberry and Norman Mailer over the "white Negro" and black cool. We come to understand how the cool worlds of Beat writers and Method actors emerged from the intersections of film noir, jazz, and existentialism. Out of this mix, Dinerstein sketches nuanced definitions of cool that unite concepts from African-American and Euro-American culture: the stylish stoicism of the ethical rebel loner; the relaxed intensity of the improvising jazz musician; the effortless, physical grace of the Method actor. To be cool is not to be hip and to be hot is definitely not to be cool.
This is the first work to trace the history of cool during the Cold War by exploring the intersections of film noir, jazz, existential literature, Method acting, blues, and rock and roll. Dinerstein reveals that they came together to create something completely new—and that something is cool.
Through eye-opening portraits of iconic figures, Dinerstein illuminates the cultural connections and artistic innovations among Lester Young, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Jack Kerouac, Albert Camus, Marlon Brando, and James Dean, among others. We eavesdrop on conversations among Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Miles Davis, and on a forgotten debate between Lorraine Hansberry and Norman Mailer over the "white Negro" and black cool. We come to understand how the cool worlds of Beat writers and Method actors emerged from the intersections of film noir, jazz, and existentialism. Out of this mix, Dinerstein sketches nuanced definitions of cool that unite concepts from African-American and Euro-American culture: the stylish stoicism of the ethical rebel loner; the relaxed intensity of the improvising jazz musician; the effortless, physical grace of the Method actor. To be cool is not to be hip and to be hot is definitely not to be cool.
This is the first work to trace the history of cool during the Cold War by exploring the intersections of film noir, jazz, existential literature, Method acting, blues, and rock and roll. Dinerstein reveals that they came together to create something completely new—and that something is cool.
Unavailable
Read more from Joel Dinerstein
The Origins of Cool in Postwar America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Long Walk Home: Reflections on Bruce Springsteen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Origins of Cool in Postwar America
Related ebooks
Memphis Mayhem: A Story of the Music That Shook Up the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMusic vs The Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhy Bob Dylan Matters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 2: 1964–1977: The Beatles, the Stones, and the Rise of Classic Rock Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Art Rebels: Race, Class, and Gender in the Art of Miles Davis and Martin Scorsese Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBirth of the Cool: Beat, Bebop, and the American Avant Garde Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As Serious As Your Life: Black Music and the Free Jazz Revolution, 1957–1977 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBob Dylan: The Essential Interviews Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings1989: Bob Dylan Didn’t Have This to Sing About Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Neil Young on Neil Young: Interviews and Encounters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fascinating Rhythm: Reading Jazz in American Writing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Were Never in Chicago Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy, from the Seventies to the Twenty-first Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sounds So Good to Me: The Bluesman's Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmped: How Big Air, Big Dollars, and a New Generation Took Sports to the Extreme Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Studies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After Aquarius Dawned: How the Revolutions of the Sixties Became the Popular Culture of the Seventies Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Young Soul Rebels: A Personal History of Northern Soul Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5San Francisco Year Zero: Political Upheaval, Punk Rock and a Third-Place Baseball Team Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHistory of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Planet of Sound Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBefore the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life in the Bronx from the 1930s to the 1960s Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man Who Sold the World: David Bowie and the 1970s Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe History of Rock & Roll, Volume 1: 1920-1963 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heat Wave: The Life and Career of Ethel Waters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dixie Lullaby Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Literary Criticism For You
As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/512 Rules For Life: by Jordan Peterson | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Reader’s Companion to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 48 Laws of Power: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Man's Search for Meaning: by Viktor E. Frankl | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Killers of the Flower Moon: by David Grann | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Art of Seduction: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Verity: by Colleen Hoover | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bad Feminist: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.by Brené Brown | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Letters to a Young Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Circe: by Madeline Miller | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lincoln Lawyer: A Mysterious Profile Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPaperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Alone: by Kristin Hannah | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Origins of Cool in Postwar America
Rating: 4.166666666666667 out of 5 stars
4/5
3 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent concise read. Covering the origin of conceptual understanding of cool. Highly recommended
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On a very short list of the contemporary cultural criticism I actually admire. I don't agree with all of Dinerstein's ideas, either inside or outside of this work, but I'm an enormous consumer of post-WWII American and French culture, and he treats the subject of post-WWII cool convincingly.