Gossip Men

J. Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and the Politics of Insinuation

Gossip Men
Christopher M Elias
RRP:
NZ$ 106.99
Our Price:
NZ$ 85.59
Hardback
h229 x 152mm - 288pg
7 May 2021 US
International import eta 7-19 days
9780226624822
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
J. Edgar Hoover, Joseph McCarthy, and Roy Cohn were titanic figures in midcentury America, wielding national power in government and the legal system through intimidation and insinuation. Hoover' s FBI thrived on secrecy, threats, and illegal surveillance, while McCarthy and Cohn will forever be associated with the infamous anticommunist smear campaign of the early 1950s, which culminated in McCarthy' s public disgrace during televised Senate hearings. In Gossip Men, Christopher M. Elias takes a probing look at these tarnished figures to reveal a host of startling new connections among gender, sexuality, and national security in twentieth-century American politics. Elias illustrates how these three men solidified their power through the skillful use of deliberately misleading techniques like implication, hyperbole, and photographic manipulation. Just as provocatively, he shows that the American people of the 1950s were particularly primed to accept these coded threats because they were already familiar with such tactics from widely popular gossip magazines. By using gossip as a lens to examine profound issues of state security and institutional power, Elias thoroughly transforms our understanding of the development of modern American political culture.
"This may be a case of scholarship catching up with James Ellroy, whose novel American Tabloid pursued that thesis with all due imaginative embellishment. "-- "Inside Higher Ed" "Gossip Men is compellingly written and fun to read from beginning to end. Elias tracks the emergence of surveillance state masculinity and highlights the role of the gossip industry in its creation and reproduction in a novel way, excellently integrating biography, media studies, and history. "-- "Shanon Fitzpatrick, McGill University" "Gossip Men is a fast-paced and absorbing account of how the men who were most vulnerable to gossip about their sexuality--Joseph McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and J. Edgar Hoover--rose to power by mastering the art of masculine performance. As the United States struggles once again with the perils of political manhood, Elias reminds us that alpha-male conservatism was born in a Cold War information economy where gossip, rumor, and innuendo were weapons--but also assets to a career. "-- "Claire Potter, The New School for Social Research" "Gossip Men is a terrific book about a trio of fascinating (if not necessarily terrific) political men. Hoover, McCarthy, and Cohn helped to create the modern security state. As this book shows, they also helped to create--and were created by--fierce public and private contests over masculinity, sexuality, and secrecy. Gossip Men is an important cultural history and a thoroughly engaging read. "-- "Beverly Gage, Yale University"
Christopher M. Elias is visiting assistant professor of history and American studies at St. Olaf College.
Status: No local stock, title imported to order
ISBN-13: 9780226624822
Published: 7 May 2021
Published In: United States
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Format: Hardback
Height: 229mm
Width: 152mm
Pages: 288

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