Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century

John F. Kasson

Apr 2011 · Sold by Hill and Wang

About this ebook

Coney Island: the name still resonates with a sense of racy Brooklyn excitement, the echo of beach-front popular entertainment before World War I. Amusing the Million examines the historical context in which Coney Island made its reputation as an amusement park and shows how America's changing social and economic conditions formed the basis of a new mass culture. Exploring it afresh in this way, John Kasson shows Coney Island no longer as the object of nostalgia but as a harbinger of modernity--and the many photographs, lithographs, engravings, and other reproductions with which he amplifies his text support this lively thesis.

Ratings and reviews

Horrible. As I was forced to buy and read this for a class, I was easily able to catch errors in pronunciation of certain meanings, and the overlying repetition of phrases and same gestures when being connected to a certain topic that itself was repeated way too much throughout the book.

The book, especially the intro, uses elevated language that obfuscates the points the author was trying to make.

About the author

John F. Kasson, who teaches history and American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the author of Houdini, Tarzan and the Perfect Man; Amusing the Million; Rudeness and Civility; and Civilizing the Machine.