Monsters in America Our historical obsessions with the hideous and the haunting

Poole (College of Charleston) is interested in monsters and their place in US cultural and social history. Specifically he argues that "the monster has its tentacles wrapped around the foundations of American history, draws its life from ideological efforts to marginalize the weak and normalize the powerful, to suppress struggles for class, racial, and sexual liberation, to transform the 'American way of life' into a weapon of empire." Poole notes that many scholarly examinations of the monstrous use psychoanalytic approaches and reference such concepts as Freud's "uncanny" and Kristeva's "abject." In contrast, Poole focuses less on the ghouls haunting individual psyches than on how American monsters have a "history coincident with a national history." The book's subjects range widely and span Colonial times to the present. Readers will encounter everything from Salem witches to serial killers, Washington Irving, zombies, Cold War aliens, Twilight's vampires, racist eugenics, and New England sea monsters. Poole introduces nonspecialists--in grimoire-like fashion--to the dark corners of US history, while his references and source notes will give those wanting to dig deeper into specific subjects a good base from which to start. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, and general readers. S. McCloud University of North Carolina at Charlotte

From 19th century sea serpents to our current obsession with vampires and zombies, history professor Poole (Satan in America) plots America's past through its fears in this intriguing though not always convincing or original sociocultural history. Poole abstains from offering a single definition of "monster," allowing various meanings to develop in historical context, as with the alleged sea beast that terrorized Gloucester, Mass., in 1817 or the shape-shifting spirit Deer Woman, described in Sallie Southweall Cotton's 1901 poem "The White Doe." Poole is best when focusing on the social impact of those considered monsters, many of the human variety-such as the subjects of racial intolerance and the perception of African-Americans, particularly male, as "monstrous beasts" who had to be destroyed at any cost, often by thousand-person lynch mobs. The 20th century is dealt with as a predictable series of film genres-WWII monster films, body snatchers, deranged serial killers, and a return to vampires of all shapes and sizes. But given Poole's argument that "[t]he monster has its tentacles wrapped around the foundations of American history," his loose definition of "monster" shows its weakness: while studying fantasy monsters can illuminate real fears, they don't equate with the demonization of actual humans of certain races or classes. 24 b&w illus. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

"The American past reads like something of a horror movie, maybe even a low-budget slasher. American history comes at us dripping with gore, victims lying scattered on the ground, eldritch moonlight revealing creeping horrors you never learned from your eighth grade history textbook. The history of the United States offers a chamber of horrors, with clergy transforming the Native American other into demonic beings, mad scientists turning state-funded laboratories into torture chambers, and the photographic revolution of the Victorian era turning toward a morbid fascination with the bodies of the dead and the creation of the category of 'gore.' History is horror." --excerpted from the Introduction  Excerpted from Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting by W. Scott Poole All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.