The taming of the American crowd : from stamp riots to shopping sprees / by Al Sandine.
Sandine, Al, 1938-
2009
HN57 .S26 2009 (Mapit)
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Title
The taming of the American crowd : from stamp riots to shopping sprees / by Al Sandine.
Author
Sandine, Al, 1938-
ISBN
9781583671986
9781583671979 (pbk.)
1583671978 (pbk.)
Publication Details
New York : Monthly Review Press, c2009.
Language
English
Description
272 p. ; 21 cm.
Call Number
HN57 .S26 2009
Dewey Decimal Classification
302.3/3
Summary
The history of the United States has been largely shaped, for better or for worse, by the actions of large groups of people. Rioters on a village green, shoppers lurching about a labyrinthine mall, slaves packed into the dark hold of a ship, strikers assembling outside the factory gates, all have their place in the rich and sometimes tragic history of the American crowd. This study traces that history from the days of anti-colonial revolt to today's passive, "colonized crowds" that fill our sports arenas, commercial centers, and workplaces. The author argues for the progressive role crowds have played in securing greater democracy, civil rights, and free speech. But he also investigates crowds in their more dangerous forms, such as lynch mobs and anti-immigrant riots. This work explains how the crowd as an active subject of change, often positive, sometimes not, has been replaced by the passive crowd as object of control and regulation. Today, the imperatives of mass society organize people in large numbers to consume goods and conform to permissible behavioral patterns, not to openly contest power. But, with the world entering a new period of economic uncertainty and mass protests erupting across the globe, it is time to reverse that trend. This book shows us the history of the untamed crowd and urges us to reclaim its legacy.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Record Appears in
On-Campus Resources > Books
All Resources
What crowds are for
The city mob
Purposeful crowds in the United States
Rollicking in the streets
Americans at play
The festival of the sixties
Rioting for fun
When crowds ruled
Crowd rule in the ancient world
Crowds make a revolution
America's revolutionary crowds
Forgotten rioters and other crowds
Human rights melees and anti-immigrant rioting
The St. Louis general strike
Mass rebellion in the industrial heartland
En masse strike support
Ghetto eruptions
When everyone sat down
Killer crowds
The crowd pathologized
Dissecting the murderous crowd's mind
Crowd as opportunity
Power shows
America on parade
Competing lesson plans
Dazzling the multitude
We interrupt this message
Pariah parade
Every corner a classroom
Parade as coming out
Dissident marchers today
Parade as happy face
Who owns the crowd?
Bought crowds in America
Celebration as cultural engineering, ad, and market
Media-driven crowds
Retrospective appropriations
Who owns the consumer crowd?
Regimes of crowd control
Crowds and the Constitution
Invention of the police
Experiments in self-policing
Controlling spectators
Screenings
Policing non-consuming crowds
Cracking down on dissidents
Crowds of disaster
Safe crowds
The late downtown
Residential dispersal
Car commuters
Shoppers
The mall
The compliant crowds of "Generica"
Imitation of someplace
Malling the downtown
Big box churches
Who needs crowds?
The evolution of assembly rights
Toward crowd obsolescence?
Crowds and catastrophe revisited.

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