Customer Reviews

The Dustbin of History

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Cultural critic Marcus, perhaps best known for his association with Rolling Stone magazine, presents 26 rewritten and re-titled essays on subjects as various as Paleolithic art and John Wayne, doo-wop and The Manchurian Candidate, his widely informed understanding and highly original insights linking seemingly disparate currents "to reveal what seems to lie beneath the surfaces of ordinary history".
In his introductory "Sketch", Marcus hopes "some of these stories ... represent ... borders well beyond those within which what we call history is usually situated. All in all, this book means to be about how we situate ourselves in history: how we understand ourselves as creatures of the past and makers of our own present, and our own future - and, by implication, of our own pasts."

(The "score" rating is a feature of this page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)

This book is, put crudely, hog wash. It is as not "original" or enlightening in any sense. It is watery and lacks substance or even basic analysis. If you want to understand history in this innovative manner Marcus claims to present then take a intro to sociology class. Nothing in this book even worths mentioning.