Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression

Cultural history is one of the abiding passions of PopMatters, and in that spirit we heartily recommend picking up Morris Dickstein’s new study of the music, theatre, film and literature of the ’30s. This ambitious text is the result of 30 years of research and writing, a work of consummate scholarship that is perfectly timed, given the ongoing economic malaise worldwide and the recent near-return to “depressionary” times. Thoroughly interdisciplinary in scope and focused on the expressions of creative individuals of the time, Dancing in the Dark convinces that these artistic “responses should resonate with us again today as we go through the stresses and anxieties that remind us too much of the Great Depression”.