Inventing the Public Enemy: The Gangster in American Culture, 1918-1934

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University of Chicago Press, 1996年4月15日 - 190 頁
In this richly detailed account of mass media images, David Ruth looks at Al Capone and other "invented" gangsters of the 1920s and 1930s. The subject of innumerable newspaper and magazine articles, scores of novels, and hundreds of Hollywood movies, the gangster was a compelling figure for Americans preoccupied with crime and the social turmoil it symbolized. Ruth shows that the media gangster was less a reflection of reality than a projection created from Americans' values, concerns, and ideas about what would sell.

We see efficient criminal executives demonstrating the multifarious uses of organization; dapper, big-spending gangsters highlighting the promises and perils of the emerging consumer society; and gunmen and molls guiding an uncertain public through the shifting terrain of modern gender roles. In this fascinating study, Ruth reveals how the public enemy provides a far-ranging critique of modern culture.

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Introduction
1
1 The Individual Society and the Uses of Crime
11
2 Criminal Businessmen
37
3 Dressed to Kill
63
4 Bad Men and Dangerous Women
87
5 The Invention in the Flesh
118
Epilogue
144
Notes
149
Index
185
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