Political mythology and popular fiction
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Political mythology and popular fiction
（Contributions in political science, no. 197）
Greenwood Press, 1988
Available at 16 libraries
Note
Bibliography: p. [185]-189
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
A fascinating contribution to the scholarship of both political science and literature, this book explores eight major genres of contemporary popular fiction generally assumed to be essentially devoid of political content--children's novels, Westerns, middle-class fiction, historical novels, small-town Americana, sports novels, American war fiction, and science fiction. By uncovering the often covert mythical themes and cultural symbols hidden in the plot formulas of these works--many of them bestsellers--the essays illustrate the debt of mass-market authors to cultural and political traditions that reach back to the origins of the American Republic.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Introduction: Political Myth, Popular Fiction, and American Culture by Ernest J. Yanarella and Lee Sigelman Nature, Human Nature, and Society in the American Western by John Moeller Democracy and Community in American Children's Literature by Timothy E. Cook Winning Isn't Everything: Sports Fiction as a Genre of Political Criticism by Thomas C. Shevory Political Change in America: Perspectives from Popular Historical Novels of Michener and Vidal by Samuel M. Hines Jr. Natural Law and Right in Contemporary American Middle-Class Literature by Ethan Fishman "Our Town" Reconsidered: Reflections on the Small Town in American Literature by Jean Bethke Elshtain The Paradox of Combat: Fictional Reflections of America at War by Cecil L. Eubanks The Machine in the Garden Revisited: American Pastorialism and Contemporary Science Fiction by Ernest J. Yanarella A Select Bibliography on Myth, Politics, and Popular Fiction
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