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Title details for Charlie Brown's America by Blake Scott Ball - Available

Charlie Brown's America

The Popular Politics of Peanuts

by Blake Scott Ball
Johnny Heller
Audiobook
3 of 3 copies available
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3 of 3 copies available
In postwar America, there was no newspaper comic strip more recognizable than Charles Schulz's Peanuts. It was everywhere, not just in thousands of daily newspapers. For nearly fifty years, Peanuts was a mainstay of American popular culture in television, movies, and merchandising, from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade to the White House to the breakfast table. Most people have come to associate Peanuts with the innocence of childhood, not the social and political turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s. Some have even argued that Peanuts was so beloved because it was apolitical. The truth, as Blake Scott Ball shows, is that Peanuts was very political. Whether it was the battles over the Vietnam War, racial integration, feminism, or the future of a nuclear world, Peanuts was a daily conversation about very real hopes and fears and the political realities of the Cold War world. As thousands of fan letters, interviews, and behind-the-scenes documents reveal, Charles Schulz used his comic strip to project his ideas to a mass audience and comment on the rapidly changing politics of America. Charlie Brown's America covers all of these debates and much more in a historical journey through the tumultuous decades of the Cold War as seen through the eyes of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Peppermint Patty, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts gang.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    August 31, 2021

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781696605410
      • File size: 224150 KB
      • Duration: 07:46:58

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Blake Scott Ball uses subtlety and understatement, much like "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz himself did, to paint a thoughtful portrait of Schulz's life and the political commentary he quietly placed in his renowned comic strip and later animated television specials. Sadly, Johnny Heller's delivery style is more like that of an anchorman. (Think: "Here now--the news!") It does not suit the narration challenge at hand. This work requires a nuanced performance. Schulz's life is well chronicled, including information on his wide circle of friends and admirers, including Ronald Reagan. But the audiobook is an opportunity lost. The narrator should have been more appropriately matched to the subject matter. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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