Love it or hate it, celebrity is one of the dominant features of
modern life--and one of the least understood. Fred Inglis sets out
to correct this problem in this entertaining and enlightening
social history of modern celebrity, from eighteenth-century London
to today's Hollywood. Vividly written and brimming with fascinating
stories of figures whose lives mark important moments in the
history of celebrity, this book explains how fame has changed over
the past two-and-a-half centuries.
Starting with the first modern celebrities in
mid-eighteenth-century London, including Samuel Johnson and the
Prince Regent, the book traces the changing nature of celebrity and
celebrities through the age of the Romantic hero, the European fin
de siecle, and the Gilded Age in New York and Chicago. In the
twentieth century, the book covers the Jazz Age, the rise of
political celebrities such as Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin, and
the democratization of celebrity in the postwar decades, as actors,
rock stars, and sports heroes became the leading celebrities.
Arguing that celebrity is a mirror reflecting some of the worst
as well as some of the best aspects of modern history itself,
Inglis considers how the lives of the rich and famous provide not
only entertainment but also social cohesion and, like morality
plays, examples of what--and what not--to do.
This book will interest anyone who is curious about the history
that lies behind one of the great preoccupations of our lives."
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