Half a million strong : crowds and power from Woodstock to Coachella / Gina Arnold.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Arnold, Gina, author.

Series:

New American canon.

The new American canon: the Iowa series in contemporary literature and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Music festivals--United States--History.

Music festivals.

Music festivals--Social aspects--United States--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (136 pages)

Place of Publication:

Iowa City : University of Iowa Press, 2018.

Summary:

From baby boomers to millennials, attending a big music festival has basically become a cultural rite of passage in America. In Half a Million Strong, music writer and scholar Gina Arnold explores the history of large music festivals in America and examines their impact on American culture. Studying literature, films, journalism, and other archival detritus of the countercultural era, Arnold looks closely at a number of large and well-known festivals, including the Newport Folk Festival, Woodstock, Altamont, Wattstax, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and others to map their cultural significance in the American experience. She finds that-far from being the utopian and communal spaces of spiritual regeneration that they claim for themselves- these large music festivals serve mostly to display the free market to consumers in its very best light.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781609386092

1609386094

OCLC:

1030447215