What: Marjorie Garber --- Shakespearean scholar extraordinaire --- explains how bits of our culture reflect back on our modern anxieties. In her freewheeling chapters, she touches on all types of cultural artifacts, from Charlotte's Web to the Scopes trial to historical sneezes to The Wizard of Oz to video games to Jell-O boxes to famous second-best beds.
Comparable to: Garber and Margaret Visser share an insatiable curiosity about the whys and wherefores of the way we live now.
Opening lines: "The 'Great Wall of China' is, some modern scholars suggest, neither great nor a wall."
You might not like it if: You don't miss unexpectedly riveting university lectures in the humanities, not even a little tiny bit.
How to get it: Kindle-able, borrowable, buyable.
Connection to previous Wreckage: Margaret Visser examines the culinary aspects of culture in The Rituals of Dinner (Rec. #63).
[Originally posted 4/5/12.]
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