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This book is a must read for anyone studying film. It completely challenges the eurocentric doctrine of the mainstream film industry. It takes Third Cinema to another level, with articles from film makers who are pioneering this work. Great references to films. Redefines film language in non-western and western terms. Important to understand that Hollywood is First Cinema, Independent film is Second Cinema and Third Cinema is completely outside of that, redefining the technology and aestetics.

Collaboratively edited by Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice, Screening The City is an eye-opening collection of essays concerning the motif of urban life and experiences as depicted by and reflected in, twentieth-century filmmaking. Literate and thought-provoking, with an eye for changes in cities as seen film since the dramatic worldwide upheaval of World War II, Screening The City Is An Erudite And Recommended Addition to Cinematic Studies reading lists and reference collections.

"Before the Deluge" is, as I recall, a good book. Berlin in the 20s is a genuinely fascinating place and the author seems to have a feeling for the subject. This book on Hollywood, however seems terribly stale. I can't grasp the theme, save that of a kind of rehash of old Hollywood lore, told by a typically right-thinking type with a sentimental concern for the "little guy" and an unreflective scorn for the "bosses." We get a little of this and a little of that, from Brecht to Reagan. The author has little to commend himself: there is no trove of never-before-seen photos, no insider take on matters known to all, nothing really worth being retold for the hundredth time. When the author is on to something potentially hot, such as the German literary community about which the author seems to know a lot, he gives it no more attention that the boring story of Reagan's star turn as the guy who lost two legs. The topic itself is of course wildly interesting; after all, Hollywood is one of the few successful experiments in utopian community-building. Perhaps the author is simply out of his league. Hollywood is often written about about by people who don't take it seriously.

The author says it himself -- he read 500 books about Hollywood, but he didn't interview anybody, as he felt that everybody had already been interviewed and nothing new would emerge. As a readable summary of other people's research, it's pretty good, and it's entertainingly written -- but I question his arrogance in assuming that he did not need to do any original legwork of his own. When he wrote this book (1986) many of the people and events were still within living memory, and the book would have been the richer and more authentic if he had talked to some of them. Even if they *have* been interviewed before.

"City of Nets" is far and away the best popular history of a Hollywood era yet written, or likely to be. Friedrich's rich, evocative overview is at once sweeping and intimate, meticulous and eminently readable, elegiac and hilarious. He captures the studio era on the cusp of a greatness largely undone by war and the elevation of mediocrity, yet limns as well the rise of the great Billy Wilder and others who would continue to nettle and challenge moviegoers -- and the movie business -- for decades to come. (Fittingly, he ends his book with the advent of Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard," the greatest satire on Hollywood ever made.) The book is a must for serious students of the movies as well as the casual reader who doesn't yet know a great deal about the subject. This is captivating stuff. I've never read a book on Hollywood I've loved more or gone back to more often.

More than a "portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s, "City of Nets" is a whirlwind tour of the American movie industry during its most tumultuous -and artistically successful- decade. In his forward, author Otto Friedrich describes Hollywood's golden decade as beginning in prosperity and ending with the studio system falling to anti-trust laws, audiences flocking to television, and much of the film industry's artistic talent blacklisted as the Red Scare swept the nation. And yet, during the intervening years, Hollywood produced its smartest and most iconic films ever in the greatest numbers ever. "City of Nets" covers the years 1939-1950. Unfortunately, the book says very little about the city of Hollywood, the economics of the film industry, or the social customs of its population. This is a book about Hollywood personalities of the 1940s -actors, producers, directors, writers, and composers.

I was disappointed by "City of Nets". I had hoped for more information about the city, about different strata of people in the film industry, about the realities of Hollywood social life -in other words, something I didn't already know. What I got was a book about prominent Hollywood personalities that tries to cover so much ground that it is superficial. Most of the stories lack depth or analysis. Readers already knowledgeable on the subjects will spot some inaccuracies and misleading omissions. "City of Nets" is best taken as an overview of the most notable Hollywood celebrities of the 1940s, their films, marriages, divorces, and legal problems. Among them are: Producers David O. Selznick, Howard Hughes, Jack Warner, Darryl Zanuck, and Louis B. Mayer. Actors Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, Charlie Chaplin, and Rita Hayworth. Directors Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger, Preston Sturges, Howard Hawks, and Billy Wilder. Writers James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, William Faulkner, and Bertolt Brecht. Composers Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg.

I'm giving "City of Nets" four stars because Otto Friedrich becomes more analytical in the book's final chapters, as the decade nears its close and the House Un-American Activities Committee spawns the Hollywood black list, turning an already bizarre culture of make-believe into a "nebulous world where nothing could be proved or disproved because nothing has been officially charged." "City of Nets" is also a good introduction to the personalities of 1940s cinema and how the European émigrés, the War, and partisan politics shaped the films. There is nothing here for film noir fans, as the author does not address issues of film technology, renewed interest in Freudian psychology, or the social environment that might have made audiences hungry for cynical, introverted, uneasy films. Granted, 1940s Hollywood is a subject of more breadth and depth than can be managed in one volume, but "City of Nets" isn't a social, economic, or an urban history. It's a lot of industry anecdotes strung together.

There was a land of cavaliers and studios called the 'Old Hollywood.' Here, in this pretty world, gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of knights and their ladies fair, of Studio Moguls and actors. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a civilization gone with the wind."

After routine basics, Chapter 3 reads like it was written for some other piece of software. Menu item "Catalog" doesn't exist on my version. Left me totally in the dark about this key feature of Writer. I'm still at a loss how to use the advanced features of the program. Very disappointed
Marty Cahill

It used to be that if you bought a new PC it came with useful software such as word processing and spreadsheet programs. Lately, the pernicious practice has arisen of bundling "trial versions" of Microsoft Office that expire in a few days if you don't pay to buy them. I would certainly prefer the old way, where you may not get the most powerful word processor around, but at least you get one you can USE without it suddenly going dead if you don't pay for it. I wouldn't even want to TRY it, and risk the possibility that I'd get used to the software. So when I recently bought a new notebook PC and found this stupid trial version, I quickly uninstalled it and went to get hold of word processing and spreadsheet software so I had the functionality on my machine.

To the rescue: [...], a software package that includes nearly all the functionality of Microsoft Office (certainly all the functionality that I needed!) and even a few things that Office doesn't do (like creating PDF files directly without a separate program like Adobe Acrobat!) I downloaded the software, and immediately had a package of Office-like software free.

The only problem was that it is not well documented. Searching through a help file when you're trying to figure out how to do something is NOT fun to me. So I wanted a book, at least on the word processor, Writer. (The spreadsheet program, Calc, is pretty intuitive to me, but then I'm not trying to do things as fancy with it as I want to do in Writer!) And this book seemed the one to go with.

It has proved useful to me; I'm not sorry I bought it. But it has at least two shortcomings: (1) It describes an old version of Writer, version 1.1 while 2.4 is the current version, and (2) it has a woefully inadequate index. The first is not the author's fault; I'm sure she wrote about the version that was current when she wrote the book, but it does mean that sometimes it describes some feature that does not operate as she describes it, and I'm left trying to figure out how to do what I want to. But the second certainly IS her fault; I simply cannot expect to find what I'm looking for in the index and I'm usually forced to go trying to guess what chapter is likely to have what I want, then flipping through the chapter to find out if she discusses the topic I want to look up.

On the plus side, only two days after getting the book, I've succeeded in doing several things I never could figure out how to do before I had the book, so it has clearly proved useful to me.

Even though the book emphasizes a version of OOo before the current one, this book will get you proficient on the basics of Writer enough to get you off and running. The majority of the basic tasks you will do with a word processor are covered. I would recommend some previous experience with word processors and GUIs in general, but its not completely necessary. For someone switching over from Word to Open Office Writer, this book would more than meet your needs.

Writer is very easy to learn, especially if you have already been using some other word formatting package. A lot of care went into the design of Writer. So that you don't have to be a technical person in order to quickly learn it.

Which largely obviates the need for this book. Most of the material should be obvious to readers. Plus, the book's CD is superfluous, so long as you have Internet access. If you need a version of Writer to install on your computer, try going to openoffice.org and getting the latest version.

I have used OpenOffice.org since before it was called OpenOffice.org and I was surprised at how much I learned when I read this book. Most of the sections stand alone, which means that you can read the sections that interest you at the moment.

This book is very readable and accessible to beginners, and it contains content that some advanced users do not know. If you want to learn how to use styles, for example, this book is amazing. I also learned how to use fields to count my figures and other items. I consider this book a must have.

After reading articles on Second Life in the Wall Street Journal and on CFO.com recently, I felt I needed an independently written primer to show me the basics of this intriguing social network. Robert Freedman's book provided me with that, and much more.

Unlike some other authors of books on Second Life, Freedman is neither an acolyte nor an attacker--but rather is a dispassionate professional who's seen how this social network has impacted his own industry: real estate. (Freedman is a senior editor at Realtor magazine.)

That doesn't prevent him from bringing a strong, valuable point of view to his account, however. The view is that serious corporate readers seeking more than "game-playing" from a social networking site can find real profit or other promotional advantage from Second Life if they act intelligently. In a way, following Freedman is like having the friendly guidance of your kids in some newfangled electronic world--except that he's a trained professional observer who is dedicated only to the reader's wellfare.

He accomplishes wonders by starting with the basics--explaining why people, and companies, use Second Life, in a way that the uninitiated, like me, can get quickly and easily. He then gives eight simple, invaluable rules for using Second Life without becoming either sick of it, or a "convert." But the greatest virtue of this book is that it approaches the business reader on his or her own terms, with information about currency, real estate and banking on the site. He then takes the reader through test models for making real money, and exposing a real-world company to profitable opportunities in Second Life.

It's nice to have a "guide" who thinks like you do.

Buy this book if you're interested in establishing a presence for your company or organization in Second Life. It provides a series of comprehensive case studies of businesses that have successfully used Second Life to leverage their brand name or expand their customer base. Freedman makes a solid case that establishing a business presence on Second Life is a good long-term investment. He describes several instances in which a business set up a retail location or meeting place (sometimes on their own island) for a fraction of how much it would cost in the real world. The book also highlights some of the problems that are likely to crop up for a business that tries Second Life.

What the book doesn't do is explain technical details such as how to move your avatar around or create a bank account. But I'm sure there are plenty of other books about that.

I was impressed with Freedman's take on Second Life ... he seems to have become a disciple of this virtual world by trying it out, and the book has given me the push to see what it's all about myself. The book describes well (for the layman) how the second life world functions, what the main types of transactions are, and some future concerns to watch out for. I think he a great case for real world companies (large and small) to investigate getting into Second Life. However, the book also stresses how there are certainly right and wrong ways to go about creating a presence there.

This is an idea book: it gives lots of examples of how companies have enhanced their business by having a presence on Second Life (especially real estate examples). The book explains that you can align with your business; similar to how a web site can be very useful. But, the book cover says, "Learn how to: Create a cool avatar and connect with residents." There is no information on how to create an avatar. There is no technical how to anything (Freedman provides a list of folks who can create software for you). If you want to get ideas of what other commercial folks (mostly real estate) have done on Second Life, want to explore taxes and legal topics, this is a good start. But, I don't like to be told that the book is about x and, when you finish, you realize x was not even mentioned.

Tracy Mack's mastery of language and writing style is especially evident in her latest book, Birdland. She moves the reader effortlessly through the pages and through the streets of New York City, making them seem alive enough to smell or feel. This portrait of grief is hopeful and uplifting as three families deal with the problems they have to deal with. It's a good book for teens to read, but I recommend it for anyone.

Bursts of lyrical beauty are overwhelmed by a plot that doesn't build up any tension for the reader, and by a propensity on the part of the main characters to act in ways that teenage boys never do - playfully mussing eachother's hair, for example. The author also displays a need to buff up on her mastery of today's street slang.

You don't have to live in New York City to fall under the spell of this beautiful novel. Descriptions of the city are cinematic, and so affecting as the story of a boy dealing with loss unfolds. Teens will relate to Jed and the weight of what he's going through, and experience the way that weight is lifted as he works things out. Impressive and unforgettable.

I face this book (and the many others like it) from a different point of view... if you need a book first to find your way around in SL, you better should not be there at all. Every user with a little but of mind will not need it. On this specific title it also annoyed me to see, that knowing second life, I partially see this as a clique of SL veterans celebrating themself... always the same names.
Just go there instead. look around, use your eyes and mind. Look at the menues. Save the money for the book amd use it to settle in SL instead...

Sure, sure, second life - what is that? Well, take it from someone older than 21 by many years, this is the best game around! Thanks to my daughter and son-in-law, I can shop, dance, party, meet new friends, and never leave my home! Check out this great addition to the Second Life Scene.

Very good starter book for the absolute newbie. Really helps to get on and start having fun.

I think this book is great for learning the basics, for understanding how Second Life works, and for gaining a flavour of what awaits you.

But, as is often pointed out, such guides are very quickly out of date. And what it doesn't give you, is a real insight into what really goes on every day in-world.

For this, you need to check out the free guide to Second Life, The AvaStar (www.the-avastar.com). It's an online newspaper covering the news, business, fashion, travel, entertainment and events of the virtual world, and every week publishes a 'Guide to...' feature, focusing on the best places to go in-world.

If you read through the paper once, you'll immediately gain an excellent understanding as to what is going on in the world. (All the back issues are available to download for free at the website).

Good luck and have fun!

Book was what it was advertised to be. Full of easy to understand instructions. Excellent buy.

I won't critize the author for writing this book, as his heart is clearly in it and he definitely knows a lot about what he's writing. But I don't think many Star Wars fans will find this book terribly interesting. It's like reading a book written about visiting a webpage... kinda pointless.

Anyone who's in the target demo for this book (hardcore SW fans and the fan fiction community) will probably already know everything in this book. And anyone else (casual SW fans, non-Sw fans) should go nowhere near this.

If you like reading copy and paste jobs of e-mails and posts sent to the author by SW fans, than you'll like the book. But then again, you can save your money and just do that for free on the Internet, can't you?

If you're a fan of the Star Wars mythoi, get this book, no question. Parts of it are a lot of fun, but it gets too bogged down in its own pseudo-academic style sometimes. There were points in the book where I got a bit impatient with the belaboring of the point at hand, but that's a niggling point at best.

Bottom line: I'm a fan, and I'm glad to have this book in my Star Wars collection of reading. You will be too.

Okay, we all know the stereotype - the nerd who is incapable of carrying on a conversation with the opposite sex, but is able to speak fluent Klingonese; the geek who can't shoot a basket to save his life, but who can personally reenact the final lightsaber duel from The Phantom Menace (complete with sound effects); the misfit who owns every Star Wars actionfigure ever produced, displayed on a set of shelves built into the walls of - wait for it - his parent's basement!

I give you the stereotypical science fiction/fantasy fan.

Only, stereotypes are an inch of fact and a mile of embellishment and conjecture. Are there fans that dress up like Mr. Spock and wave the V sign, telling you to "Live Long and Prosper"? Sure there are! Are there people who can do perfect imitations of a wizened, green puppet (and now CGI character) asking the Force to be with you? You bet!

However, such stereotypes are only a small portion of what encompasses fandom, but they are likely all that the non-fan (or "mundanes" as in the Harry Potter series) may envision, because it is upon the more flamboyant fans that the media so loves to shine their questionable spotlight. Yet, in truth, fandom is as varied as - well - "real life!". For every guy dressed as a Jedi and waving a plastic lightsaber at a Star Wars premiere, there is a family in jeans and t-shirts sitting down to share popcorn in the front row of the theater.

Perhaps most unfortunate of all is the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) suggestion of superiority on the part of the media covering fandom - the outsider studying some exotic, and not quite healthy, cultural phenomena and offering it up as an object of amusement if not outright derision for the "normal" masses.

I've heard the jokes and the put downs, repeatedly. I've come to expect it. So it was with some trepidation that I picked up William Brooker's study of Star Wars fandom. "Here we go again," I thought. "Someone who thinks they understand fandom and is going to tell us all about the "unhappy, socially inept fans who use science fiction and fantasy as a form of escapism from their sad, miserable little lives."

I was wrong. The first thing you should know about Will Brooker is that HE is a fan himself, and this gives him a unique perspective - not to mention it makes it more likely fellow fans will trust him enough to allow glimpses into aspects of their lives they have learned to keep secret to avoid ridicule. Brooker walks the walk and talks the talk. He respects his fellow fans and their views, and he presents them in a fair minded and non-judgmental light in his book, which makes for a pleasant change.

Furthermore, he discusses fandom from many angles, including those that are often overlooked or somewhat obscure and may not be familiar even to many that consider themselves Star Wars fans. Do the terms PWP, EU, "gusher" and "Space Wheat" mean anything to you? They will once you have read this book, and some of the insights you discover may surprise you. Brooker covers such topics as women in fandom. How do they view the Star Wars universe, and how do their reactions and expectations differ from those of the men who tend to dominate science fiction? What about creative expression in fandom? When fans use George Lucas' characters and universe to inspire their own flights of fancy, whether it be through short films, writing or art work, is this a form of homage to Lucas or a blatant disregard for legal copyright laws, or both? How did fans react to The Phantom Menace? Was it a disaster or a glorious success, or a little of each?

So who should read this book? Everyone! Non-fans should read it to gain an insight into fandom. Fans are not simply some exotic creatures you only see dressed in Jedi robes on the news coverage of a Star Wars premier. Fans include the teacher in your child's classroom, the vet who takes care of your dog, the guy who programmed your business software, the kid down the street who mows your lawn, and the Air force meteorologist. They are people like you, and, yes, like me - I am a fan and proud of it.

Fans should read to gain a broader view of the myriad aspects of fandom and the response people have to the Star Wars phenomena. As Brooker points out, Star Wars fandom is a dynamic, complex entity. Many fans don't even agree on issues covered in this book. However, for the most part, they do speak a common language that allows for immediate recognition and a sense of inclusion in a world where fans often feel excluded. Even when they disagree, there is a sense of community - a community Brooker knows well.

A great book for appreciating the various outlets of current Star Wars fandom. While offering little serious academic discourse, the book does put into print many issues which to this point have been limited to internet discussion and fan zines, such as LFL's strict licesing enforcement, the culture of message board discussion, fan fiction and films. In the end it stands as an interesting catalog of current happenings in the world of Star Wars fandom, as seen from an insider who respects the devotion of a unique community.

Anyone who frequents theforce.net message board will find everything in here to be old news. There isnt anything unique or any revelations of any kind on the state of fandom. Many of the editorial decisions are downright headscratching, such as devoting the most pages and the largest chapter to the most obscure and least appetizing (and interesting) of SW fan activites, slash fan fiction, and then giving mere lipservice to the fan film subculture despite its overwhelming popularity and overabundance of ancedotes. There was nothing in the fanfilm section at all that could not be gleened by even a superficial examination of a handful of fanfilm websites. Very shallow.

The author's research as a sum total is highly suspect. He says that the bulk of his personal correspondance consists of merely the first 100 members of theforce.net to answer his email. Whereas he can hide behind that process being allegely random, the results obivously indicate that he got caught with a string of egomaniacs and malcontents.
The author lets these "fans" (used loosely) go off on the most inane and undefendable rants on how Lucas is an idiot, the movies suck, and how much better everything would be if they were in charge, and the author never follows through to get them to justify these positions. Every wild eyed gut spew is taking as God's Holy Fact. That would be acceptable if the author was writing a book about people who hate the Phantom Menace, but he isnt. He pretends to write a book about ALL Star Wars fans, and pretends that these anti-Phantom views speak for the majority of all fans, a position which is completely unjustified. He gives pro-phantom fans only brief soundbites to rebut the furious raving of the bashers, and never even tries to gives both sides an equal shake. This ought not happen.
(There was not a single complaint given by the bashers that was not completely refutable if not outright ridiculous paranoia. They dont review TPM, they engage in character assassination, the maturity of which is nonexistant and juvenile. I could cut any one of these yo yos into metaphorical ribbons on a moderated message board in 30 seconds or less).

My impression is that the author has an unreasonable hatred of Phantom Menace, and is using this book to get back at Lucas, for Lucas "owes" him in some etherial manner known only to the TPM bashers who spend far too much time and spend far too much anger to be taken seriously about anything. This book is not Star Wars friendly, yet it tries to fool you into thinking it is a fair assessment.

It is not.
Stick to the message boards.

I've been playing Second Life for only about a week and was curious to see if there were any books written about it. I must admit I was surprised to see that there are several available, but I bought this one because it was the only book I saw on Amazon that appeared to have been reviewed by actual people, and not just by the author's Second Life avatar. (I have also ordered the new edition of the Official Guide due out next month.)

After receiving the book last night I understand and appreciate Jerry Saperstein's earlier review on this page. I feel fortunate to have at least tried Second Life before seeing this book, and I still have hope that Second Life is more than what is described in this book.

There is some useful information here, but the stuff I really want to know (like, if I buy "new land" can I choose the location?) I guess I'll just have to find out on my own. Thanks to this book, I now know that Amsterdam Second Life is a really good place to get my Second Life genitals, an aspect of the game that had not occurred to me, and frankly really doesn't interest me. If the book is right, and cybersex is really what Second Life is all about, then maybe the $10 I spent on this book has saved me a lot of time wasted in this game.

As a 35-year veteran of online worlds, everything from irc to chat to the Palace to the Sims, I was skeptical about Second Life. Whatever fancy technology is involved, people are still people, and I figured it was in essence a chat room with new bells and whistles. And it is that--the core behaviors of online chat have not changed much in 35 years--but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there is much more to Second Life than chat. I was helped in this discovery by the authors of this book. The official book from Linden Labs mostly tells you how to do things. This book goes another step, and suggests things to do. The news media seem mostly focused on commerce and sex in Second Life. And there is that. The people in Second Life are similar to the cyber-denizens you will find anywhere online. The real difference here is the places: the worlds that people have built. Even if you never talk to anyone else, you can have amazing experiences simply exploring: a mystical forest, a sinister cathedral in the sky, an amusement park where you can ride a roller coaster, a Victorian village, an urban wasteland, and romantic sunset beaches are among thousands of places imagined and created, not by the owners of Second Life, but by its "residents." This guide helped me find all of them, giving hours of enjoyment even to this ancient cyber-skeptic.

I also appreciate that the authors have taken some time to bring readers up to speed on the culture of Second Life's residents. In any online community--well, any community really, online or off--there is always a subtext that new people struggle to understand, consisting of previous events and interpersonal struggles. The authors have shed light on this history for us in a most amusing way. In short, I'm grateful to have read this book at the beginning of my Second Life experience; it was very, very helpful and has increased my enjoyment of Second Life considerably.

I bought this book because I was curious about Second Life. I had visited the Second Life web site and didn't find a lot there to get me excited or really curious, so I thought this promised overview might provide a more convincing argument.

It doesn't.

The book isn't bad. It is quite informative, in fact. But it leaves me with the impression that Second Life is just another roleplaying game of the kind that interested me a couple of decades ago but long ago lost their appeal.

The authors make it clear that Second Life is the same old thing in new dress. People looking for cybersex; people looking to control; people looking to escape reality, but dragging their real-life problems with them. In short, Second Life is just another online game with great hype.

Granted, there are many people who enjoy frittering away hours in roleplaying environments. I am not one of them. To that end, this book has served me well: it convinced me that Second Life was not worth trying.

The authors do provide a thorough overview of Second Life and its "attractions" and venues. For people who enjoy this kind of thing, it would be a good introductory guide. To the authors' credit, they don't try to make Second Life appear to be a musn't miss experience; in fact, they take pains to acknowledge that it is just a game and that some people appear to take it far too seriously.

Jerry

A Great and direct intro to Second Life. I keep a copy next to my PC and use it to Navigate in SL.

The review here by Jerry Saperstein is a lot of hooey. Jerry is either ticked off about something and using subtle cues in his text to bash the book and its author, or else is an overstuffed blowhard who didn't take the time to explore SL. If he had looked thoroughly at Second Life, he would have found what most find sooner or later: it's not a game. It has no game rules, no scoring, no winners and losers. Rather, it is a large-scale social network where people build their environments and connect with people they wish to know. And it's completely safe. You can't be killed there. He makes it seem bad that people are looking to escape reality. Duh! That's what role-playing is all about. He overlooks the vast array of human knowledge on display in SL. This is fast becoming a center for online education in social sciences, physical sciences, arts and letters. The opportunities for learning through exploration are amazing. This book is a great way to start searching for that excitement in a world beyond reality.

Reading Vanessa Schwartz's brilliant work Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Paris, one can get the feeling that the late nineteenth-century Parisian popular press was as omnipresent as the modern-day paparazzi. Throughout her enchanting narrative of the institutions and behaviors of an evolving mass culture, Schwartz characterizes the news consumption of a newly-literate population from the emerging print media as a key component to the identification of residents and visitors in fin de siècle Paris. The importance of print to Paris's cultural evolution does not preclude significant influences of visual media. In fact, Spectacular Realities argues that the creation and representation of Parisian society "relied on the explicit connection between written and visual texts." Schwartz's driving logic is that "a culture that became 'more literate' also became more visual as word and image generated the spectacular realities described" (3).

The book begins with a well-crafted introduction that locates the author's position contra the historical literature emphasizing written or visual texts as opposed cultural forms. Schwartz promptly introduces her post-modern view that "any history is a history of representation" (4) and she succinctly acquaints the reader with the work's star actors (the press, the boulevards, the morgue, the wax museum, panorama, and cinema). Schwartz, then, remains true to the proposed schema and devotes the subsequent 192 pages--with the focus of a steaming locomotive--to conveying perhaps the book's most salient point: "The visual representation of reality as spectacle in late nineteenth-century Paris created a common culture and a sense of shared experiences through which people might begin to imagine themselves as participating in a metropolitan culture because they had visual evidence that such a shared world, of which they were a part, existed" (6).

Similar to futurist Alvin Toffler's analysis of the fin de vingtiéme siècle in Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century (New York: Bantam Books, 1990) that "knowledge is the most democratic source of power," the popular press of late nineteenth-century Paris empowered individuals to be or become Parisian by describing for them what "Parisian" was. The press, while creating a framework for viewing urban life, did not necessarily create that life. The city's Haussmannian boulevards established a new city center, complete with the displacement of workers and built-in social controls, where, according to a contemporary newspaper, "one can say everything, hear everything and imagine everything" (21). The boulevards provided a forum as an alternate venue for the revolutionary crowds, and the press created an imagined community of the street--a "boulevard culture"--in which the public could play a part.

Throughout the book there exists cooperation between reality and the representation of reality. The reinforcement of visual representation of reality as spectacle is most stark in Schwartz's discussion of the city morgue. Despite public participation in corpse identification as the municipality's basis for displaying dead bodies, "the morgue fit into a modern Parisian landscape in which the banal and the everyday developed in sensational narratives" (48). The popular press projected the morgue's display of death in Parisian society just as ravenously as it depicted la vie des boulevards. The entertaining spectacle of viewing the artful exhibition of nameless corpses, who played their part as would theatrical actors under stage direction, garnered little or no grief for the expired souls that had previously inhabited the bodies. As one of the most popular sites in Paris, with free admission and a visiting public of different classes and nationalities, the morgue provided a strikingly realistic dimension to add to the sensational narratives playing out on the streets of Paris and reported in her newspapers.

In a society that valued spectacle as reality, not even the established wax museums and the panoramas remained static. Arthur Meyer, director of Le Paris-Journal, placed the Musée Grévin in the liveliest part of the city and modeled the museum after the newspapers, offering the feuilleton, the échos, and the fait divers. In lieu of solely paying homage to past events, the museum communicated and illustrated current events to the public. By constantly changing displays to keep up with the changing events, the museum, similar to the boulevards, the press, and the department stores, attempted to define and project modern Parisian life.

The public continued to become more active in the spectacles of reality. The morgue allowed spectators to envision a corpse's manner of death. Panoramas relied on the audience-generated optical illusions. These illusions worked because they reflected the spectators' lionized views of modern life. As the public's threshold for realism increased, wax and panoramas gave way to mechanically simulated motion and cinematic productions. Instead of replacing these media, however, cinema continued with the technical capacity the trend toward realistic spectacle that had begun decades earlier. As Gabriel Thomas asserted at the time, "[The cinema] allows us to keep current events on our posters and thereby give complete satisfaction to the most demanding tastes of the public" (194).

Schwartz's analysis emphasizes the role of written and visual media in the shaping of Paris's mass culture. Yet, she does not relieve Parisians of agency. The public actively participated in the cultural flanerie, which Schwartz views as a kind of active spectatorship. It invited Parisians of all classes to assume a position within the spectacles, and therefore, secure a place within the imagined community. Schwartz describes this flanerie as empowering. The flaneurs "participated in [the spectacle] at the same time that they believed it was constructed for them" (131).

Spectacular Realities is written very much in line with Michael Miller's The Bon Marché (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981). Both works address Parisian bourgeois culture, during roughly the same period, as a culmination of, not a dramatic break from, cultural and social movements during the preceding decades of nineteenth-century Paris. Miller's Bon Marché projected and affirmed the identity of the bourgeoisie, while inviting others to aspire to become bourgeois. Likewise, in Schwartz's Paris, the spectacular realities defined and projected the communal identity of Parisians. The boulevards provided the setting, the popular press wrote the script, the morgue, wax museum, and panoramas exhibited the plot, and the mass public supplied the actors.

Schwartz contributes a vivid, forcibly-argued view of print media, visual images, and an empowered populace to our understanding of Paris's cultural history. This feat should not be overshadowed by the sometimes unclear influence of class status and gender roles within the late nineteenth-century Parisian mass community. The book, while acknowledging class and gender differences, seems to present the imagined community as an inclusive one. Notwithstanding Schwartz's well-researched, powerfully crafted account, one may wonder, however, if on some narrow, forgotten rue, there were not scores of individuals for whom the Parisian reality remained unspectacular.

i read this book for my history class(i am a college student) on european cultural/intellectual history. The author provides you with amazingingly creative and sharp insights on how visual images played a vital role in constructing a new modern metropolitan culture in the late nineteenth century Paris. It is not a book that just rambles about what's "cool" about Paris unlike many other books; it offers a very convincing and methodical explanation and observation on French culture at the trun of the century. If you love Paris, READ THIS BOOK!