Customer Reviews

Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Nasaw offers an interesting account of the rise of public amusements such as baseball, amusement parks, vaudeville and nickelodeons at the turn of the century. He argues that these amuseuements united European immigrants as "American", in part by denying access to African-Americans. Yet, Nasaw does not adequately weave his discussion of African-Americans into his narrative. Similarly, he does not discuss other ethnic groups such as Asian-Americans and Hispanics, among others to investigate their accessibility to public amusements. Nasaw also limits his account primarily to Chicago and New York, while trying to draw broad implications for the entire country. He has offered very interesting anecdotes and provided a broad history of different amusements at the turn of the century, however, his analytical framework is not without its flaws.

I agree with the sentiments of the above reviewer, yet I wonder how such negative a review could elicit so many "stars" of evaluation. I tried to teach Nasaw's book in the context of a college course on sports and leisure, with moderate success. Aside from the discussion about white's perceptions of African Americans (a topic which, as the previous reviewer said are not themselves brought into the picture), there is little to no discussion of historical context or the social structure of the urban environments that produced these "public amusements." It seems that Nasaw's book is really part of a larger project, as there is much that needs to be filled in -- especially any detailed discussion of public amusements between 1910 and WWII and beyond. This book would be useful to the specialist of leisure of entertainment in that it is very well documented and covers a very wide territory of leisure practices. But too often the reader is left thinking "So what?" and Nasaw does little in the way of arguing WHY this particular book was written -- why he wrote it in this particular way. All in all, a rather boring and tedious book, though one which is not without its interesting historical facts.