American Laughter, American Fury
Humor and the Making of a White Man's Democracy, 1750–1850
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American Laughter, American Fury
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Narrated by:
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Joe Barrett
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By:
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Eran A. Zelnik
About this listen
In American Laughter, American Fury, Eran A. Zelnik offers a cultural history of early America that shows how humor among white men served to define and construct not only whiteness and masculinity but also American political culture and democracy more generally.
Zelnik traces the emerging bonds of affinity that white male settlers in North America cultivated through their shared, transformative experience of mirth. This humor—a category that includes not only jokes but also play, riot, revelry, and mimicry—shaped the democratic and anti-elitist sensibilities of Americans. It also defined the borders of who could participate in politics, notably excluding those who were not white men. While this anti-authoritarian humor transformed the early United States into a country that abhorred elitism and class hierarchies, ultimately the story is one of democratization gone awry: this same humor allowed white men to draw the borders of the new nation exclusively around themselves.
Zelnik analyzes several distinct forms of humor to make his case: tall tales, "Indian play," Black dialect, riot and revelry, revolutionary protests, and blackface minstrelsy. This provocative study seeks to understand the vexing, contradictory interplay among humor, democracy, and violence at the heart of American history and culture that continues today.
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Story5 out of 5 stars 1
As humans, we think in stories—stories that allow us to feel and share emotions. In order for this phenomenon to work, our brains and the ways in which we tell stories must be attuned to each other. But how exactly does this happen? Tapping into the essence of thinking in stories, Fritz Breithaupt draws on the latest scientific research, including a retelling study (comparable to the telephone game) with more than 12,000 participants, and experiments in which ChatGPT functions as storyteller.
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Why I Became an X Troop Commando
- A Life of Colin Anson, the German Who Fought for Churchill
- By: Helen Fry
- Narrated by: Harrie Dobby
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Born in Germany in 1922, Colin Anson's (Claus Ascher) childhood was marked by the trials of Nazism. His father was arrested by the Gestapo in 1937 and transported to Dachau, where he died shortly after. Colin, aged just seventeen, escaped to Britain in the Kindertransport. As soon as he was old enough, Colin volunteered in the Pioneer Corps. Then, in 1942, he was recruited for the elite commando unit X-Troop. Colin took part in the invasions of Sicily and Italy in 1943, where he sustained a near-fatal injury. But just months later, he returned to duty.
By: Helen Fry