Customer Reviews

American Folklore, Penguin Dictionary of

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This book would be an appropriate gift for foreigners who have just recently been granted American citizenship; it includes many people, places and things which are important to American cultural history, and the reading level is not difficult. If you were born and raised in the USA, this book will be a pleasant trip down memory lane. Most of the "places and things" entries were familiar to me, but there were countless "people" entries that I had never even heard of. Unfortunately, the photographic illustrations are of poor quality.

The book provides the opportunity to enjoy an hour or two grazing from one reference to another, if you are prepared to be ocassionally perplexed or annoyed. Many of the descriptions were quite good. I was surprised by many of the things included, and disappointed by things that were omitted.

I was also disheartened by the PC'ness that infected much of the book, but I guess something to be expected on such an academic subject. As an example, their determination that "Pollack jokes" were ethnically offensive, is an interesting judgment, in a book that I am sure is intended to be "non-judgmental." Another example, the inclusion of "Gay folklore" and "AIDS Tales" two subjects whose place in this survey seem dubious, especially when one realizes some of the items that have been left out. (Definitions for "Horatio Alger" stories, the Great Gatsby, Moby Dick, Fitzgerald, or Faulkner were apparently omitted so that suitable space could be devoted for such influential subjects as "Gay folklore" I am sure.)

My final example of their PC'ness is that they include (and apparently dismiss) under "Conspiracy lore" the fact that some people saw communism "plotting against the United States government" in the 1950s as a belief on par with such wacky conspiracy theories as UFOs, Hollow Earth, and secret societies such as the Illuminati and the Tri-Lateral Commission running the world. Can anyone beside academics really argue that communists were not plotting against our government?

I also have questions about the depth of their research. As an example, their review of military lore was amusing, though I wonder how much of it they got from watching "Full Metal Jacket" or old WW II movies, rather than speaking to actual veterans and asking them to relate their folklore.

Overall, not a book I would recommend rushing out to buy.