Savage pastimes; a cultural history of violent entertainment

Reference & Research Book News, August, 2005

P96

2004-051244

0-312-28276-1

Savage pastimes; a cultural history of violent entertainment.

Schechter, Harold.

St. Martin's Press, [c]2005

192 p.

$24.95 (pa)

True-crime author and professor Schechter (literature, Queens College, NYC) presents a cultural history of violence in popular entertainment. He examines depictions of violence in today's movies and video games, finding them relatively mild in comparison to the public beheadings and other bloody diversions of previous centuries. He also explains how the demonization of comic books by self appointed moral guardians in the 1950s established a pattern of equating action-packed entertainment with aggression.