When did those awkward, tormented creatures known as teenagers first crawl out of the primordial ooze and into American culture? Believe it or not, they didn't always exist. It was not until World War II, with grown men off fighting and grown women working in factories, that adolescents were left idle and unsupervised long enough to wreak havoc. In the forties, fifties, and sixties a new breed of youth evolved -- the juvenile delinquent -- and this state of emergency was quickly dramatized in every cultural medium. In Teenage Confidential, Michael Barson and Steve Heller conduct a guided tour through three decades of teen angst, displayed in shocking Technicolor on movie posters, paperbacks, comic books, advertising art, television shows, and Top Forty music paraphernalia. From Father Knows Best to Youth Runs Wild, this unflinching survey spotlights the sordid ways of our rebel youth.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
With Teenage Confidential Chronicle Books presents another of their densely illustrated gift volumes, and, as usual, the layout and extremely rich color photos are dazzling. The imagery is so intense that it would be easy to miss the fluidly written history of the American teen that surrounds the illustrations. Pictures of shindigs and sock hops mix with reproductions from teen comic books and teenybopper record covers to provide a complete visual history of this oddly modern culture of fleeting youth desperately trying to have fun.
About the Author:
Michael Barson is the author of Better Dead Than Red!; Lost, Lonely and Vicious; and Born to Be Bad. He lives in New York.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherChronicle Books
- Publication date1997
- ISBN 10 0811815846
- ISBN 13 9780811815840
- BindingPaperback
- Edition number1
- Number of pages132
-
Rating