A wide-ranging, persuasive, readable treatise on a crucial component of modern life.
We’re a quarter of the way through the 21st century. What do we have to show for it?
How is it possible that our modern society produces so much content and yet so little true cultural innovation? In the 21st century, “the most radical forms of cultural invention have become scarce,” says culture writer Marx. Neoliberalism tamps down creative innovation by “elevating extreme profit-seeking as the highest human goal.” The theory of “poptimism” posits that popular culture should be “appreciated as a complex manufactured product” rather than derided as kitsch; once poptimism took hold, artists who openly pursued mass-market success were lauded rather than accused of “selling out.” The film industry began to rely more heavily on existing IP and nostalgia for low-risk, financially rewarding projects; as Marx says, “Retromania depends on older works feeling more valuable than contemporary ones.” Web 2.0, with its user-generated content and revenue-sharing models that allowed direct monetization, has created a class of well-compensated and highly visible influencers, but this development has not amounted to a “true revolution [involving] a reversal of status” because these individuals “had little influence on mainstream cultural standards.” Pioneering niche movements have been unseated by “the omnivore monoculture,” in which the blending of all tastes and styles is welcomed, even encouraged, as long as the result is maximally commercially successful. (Country music was once seen as a stubborn holdout of monoculture, but then came Lil Nas X.) Now that inclusive liberal politics have largely become normalized, extreme radical conservatives (“a group with no meaningful concern for artistic innovation”) have emerged as the transgressives of the new century; while mainstream culture did not embrace them, the internet has allowed their ideas to flourish unabated, with profound consequences. Marx has written a worthy follow-up to his 2022 book, Status and Culture. He draws on a commendable wealth of examples from disparate realms of culture—from the dominance of Japanese streetwear to Nazified internet memes and the “child influencer” the Rizzler—to ably explain what many citizens of the modern world, especially Americans, have long colloquially felt: that our current culture has grown stagnant.
A wide-ranging, persuasive, readable treatise on a crucial component of modern life.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593833995
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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