Customer Reviews

The Making of Middlebrow Culture

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

 

 

I found the book well written and the ideas presented in a logical way. The middle brow culture of the early 20th century clearly has parallels today. Plus, the dumbing down of American culture these days (anyone for American Idol?) shows how these middle brow folks would be considered almost high brow today.

I have read several books on the emergence of popular culture in the nineteenth century, but nothing held my attention as much as this did. If you are looking for a book that clearly develops the emergence of middlebrow culture in America, this is the one to read. I'd strongly advise you to ignore the one-star review because what the author is communicating is NOT at all obvious. Moreover, through a careful examination of such phenomenons as the Book of the Month Club, the great books project, and other efforts to bring highbrow intellectualism to the masses, Rubin brings to life a period in our history that many have forgotten.

This book is the work of an academic looking for tenure, with unfortunately a limited feel for what constitutes a pertinent or interesting detail or strain of narrative either to a middlebrow or a highbrow. Our author attempts to make a few distinctions between the middlebrow/mass man's tenuous grasp on learning and that of the genuine intellectual: the desire for the development of personality versus that of character, the substitution of the accumulation of facts and information for the thorough mastery of difficult subjects, the cultivation of the mind as a hobby taken up in spare moments as against being the center around which one's life is primarily organized. However, it would have been useful if she could have demonstrated more clearly how the minds of her serious intellectuals differed in kind from that of the middlebrows, and how they succeeded in attaining to that state. She also doubtless regards herself as a more than usually advanced brain--she certainly makes it a point to emphasize her identification as one of the professional academic community, as if that in itself ever made anyone some kind of serious highbrow--but on what grounds? This books adds nothing even infinitessimal to culture, knowledge, or simple enjoyment of life. There are too many wonderful books one is never going to read in life. I can't recommend anyone devote a week or so to this.

The author attempts to write in language that confuses the reader to hide the fact that the point she it trying to make is obvious and not worthy of sooooo many pages.