Cool rules : anatomy of an attitude / Dick Pountain and David Robins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pountain, Dick.

Contributor:

Robins, David, 1944-2007.

Series:

Focus on contemporary issues

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social influence.

Attitude (Psychology)--Great Britain.

Attitude (Psychology).

Popular culture--Great Britain--History.

Popular culture.

Great Britain.

History.

Great Britain--Social life and customs--1945-.

Manners and customs.

Physical Description:

189 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm.

Place of Publication:

London : Reaktion, 2000.

Summary:

The contemporary Cool attitude is barely 50 years old, but its roots are older than that. Cool Rules traces Cool's origins in European, Asian and African cultures, its prominence in the African-American jazz scene of the 1940s and its pivotal position within the radical subcultures of the 1950s and '60s. Dick Pountain and David Robins examine various art movements, music, cinema and literature, moving from the dandies and flaneurs of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through to the expropriation of a whole cultural and psychological tradition by the media in the 1980s and '90s. What began as a rebellious posture adopted by minorities mutated to become mainstream itself. Cool is now primarily about consumption, as 'cool' advertisers have seized on it to create a constantly updated bricolage of styles and entertainments designed to affect the way people think about themselves and their society.

Contents:

1 What is Cool? 15

2 Out of Africa 34

3 A Whiter Shade of Cool 52

4 That's Cool Too ... 71

5 Cool Cracks Up 94

6 The Look of Cool 114

7 Cool Relations 132

8 Cool Psyche 146

9 Cool Rules 160.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 183-[187]).

ISBN:

1861890710

OCLC:

43819114