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Alarum Books

The Shape of Things to Come [Greil Marcus]

The Shape of Things to Come [Greil Marcus]

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[New Weird America] [Prophecy] [Criticism]

The Shape of Things to Come

Greil Marcus

FSG, New York. 2006. First edition. Dust jacket has some creases and minor tears.Pristine otherwise.

 From the publisher:

"In this exhilarating and kaleidoscopic investigation of American identity, Greil Marcus traces the nation's fable of self invention from its earliest Puritan beginnings to its successive retellings in the work of diverse contemporary artists. Marcus considers the birth of America as a New Jerusalem, a place of promises so vast that they could only be betrayed--and how from that betrayal emerged the nation's prophetic voice, the voice that calls America's citizens to self-judgment. Over the course of our history, Marcus finds that the prophetic voice has sounded less and less in the political realm--where it can be heard in the words of John Winthrop, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr.--and more in the work of individual artists, including Philip Roth, David Lynch, Sinclair Lewis, John Dos Passos, David Thomas of Pere Ubu, Allen Ginsberg, the band Heavens to Betsy, Bill Pullman, and Sheryl Lee."

I picked this up because I like Marcus' music criticism and the title is a deeply evocative turn of the phrase for me. This ends up being a pretty heady mix of history and reflections on modern pop culture. Really cool and very much a highwater mark for Marcus.Recommended.

 

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