Overview
The Passing Parade presents a fascinating survey of the ways in which popular culture has been created, packaged, sold, and consumed since 1900. The movies, fashion, design, media and advertising, popular music and dance, sports, television, the popular press, fads—all the myriad manifestations of popular culture are treated in this lavishly illustrated, oversized volume. Most other books covering a similar range of topics have been limited to a single decade or a single country or else have pursued a nostalgic and celebratory, rather than analytical, approach. This book, incisive in its commentary and broadly international in its scope, seeks both to inform and entertain the reader, providing a cultural history of the ways in which modern society has shaped its aspirations, created its heroes, and lived out its fantasies.
Divided chronologically into six parts, the book supplements its main text with nearly 300 pictures (over half of them in color) and a rich array of sidebar material, including 100 full-color diagrams, charts, and maps. Each section includes a chronology providing essential information about the "who, what, and when" of the period and biographical details about the major figures of the time, be they film directors, rock stars, or professional athletes. With special feature boxes illuminating everything from Russian cinema to Broadway musicals to shopping malls, the book also includes a wealth of fascinating statistical data and a concluding section comprising 300 biographies of the most important men and women in popular culture from around the globe.